"Did you know that Australia’s remaining old growth forests are being logged, woodchipped and burnt? In Tasmania alone, more than 44 football fields worth of forest are logged and destroyed every single day. From this, a staggering 90% is wood chipped then exported overseas to make ‘throwaway’ paper products like junk mail, disposable plates, copy and toilet paper."
ForestFreedom.com
From the comments about Pulping The World, Part 2:
"I am one of the people sued by Gunns for exposing the rape of the Tasmanian forests. However, please note that not all the "Gunns 20" are activists. I am a television cameraman who made a film about activists. People of all walks of life are horrified at the theft of our natural heritage to profit a greedy few.
It is sad to see the lie that the forests are regrown (anonymously) on this site. The truth is that native forest, a mix of rainforest and tall eucalypts, takes thousands of years to form, with its rich ecosystems brimming with biodiversity.
These are being destroyed and replaced by crops, by plantations of eucalypt designed to feed the woodchippers. The ancient, diverse forest does not grow back. It is gone forever. Many species are threatened by extinction.
There is a campaign of intimidation, misinformation, violence and slander directed at those who expose this appalling, irreversible destruction.
Please everybody, wherever you are, pressure the Tasmanian and Australian governments to stop this industrial horror." Brian Dimick
ONE of Gunns Ltd‘s largest woodchip customers has announced it will no longer buy product sourced from old-growth forests, a move heralded as a victory by conservationists.
Mitsubishi Paper Mills is one of three Japanese companies that take the bulk of Gunns’ woodchip exports.
The company has released a conservation policy saying it will only buy woodchips from plantations and regrowth forests.“Mitsubishi does not purchase any wood harvested from forest areas having high conservation values which are threatened,” says the policy, released on June 1. The Advocate
"While Tasmanian billion dollar Australian registered company Gunns Limited and its shareholders (including the Commonwealth Bank and AMP ) bathe in record profits from woodchipping and vandalizing Tasmania’s native forests, poisoning its wildlife and spraying carcinogenic chemicals, it initiates legal action in Melbourne for $6.3 million in damages against ordinary Tasmanian mums and dads that dare to oppose the Gunns regime and who can’t afford legal representation."
McGunns.com
"Yet the continued use of deadly 1080 poison seems to blow all other crimes off the radar screen. 1080, or Sodium monofluoroacetate, is an extremely toxic chemical imported into Tasmania by the government’s Department of Primary Industry, Water and Environment (DPIWE). It comes in a white powder form and has no odor and no taste. It is, for Gunns Ltd and the Tasmanian government, the perfect poison for wildlife genocide.
Following the re-planting of a monoculture plantation, the area is littered with healthy carrots to attract native wildlife, such as possums and wallabies, to graze. Once wildlife populations have recognized the feeding opportunities within the plantation, carrots are laced with 1080 poison and laid out for unsuspecting animals. The 1080 is quickly absorbed into the animals bloodstream and attacks the nervous system…"
ForestFreedom.com
You may download high resolution versions of the above images from this photostream
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I’m glad you got Google Earth up and running. I thought it would help create some nice images for Sprol. Spectacular, isn’t it?
It’s really great how much they’ve improved the data set. I hope that there are API calls to activate and control the 3d earth viewer in a web page soon.
I am glad there are still people who care about the environment. These are real issues, and we cannot ignore them.
Good use of Google Earth to expose the cruel fact and image of deforestation.
Although there are people who still care for the environment, it does not happen to be enough. Spread the message even further to let more people know!
This is so sad.
But what a great idea to use Google Earth for this blog. Excellent!
I was confused as to why Gunns would seed the ground with carrots just to entice animals in to feed, then provide them with poison-laced carrots so they died…
If you introduced a brand new food source that killed the individual animals that ate it, most of the native population would wind up avoiding it, preferring to eat the tree seedlings. However if the animals are first habituated… then you can wipe out the whole regional population of wild animals in one go.
i agree with jay it is good to some people who care our environment.
Trees are evil. They kill people. Forests should be banned. Gunns rule!
I was really impressed by the idea of google earth images, and i suggest that you try capturing East Africa, particularly western kenya, northern uganda and SSESE ISLANDS on Lake Victoria, where massive Oldgroth rain forests are being logged(with govt. support) and replaced with almost useless Palm trees, by a malyaysian firm.
The Tasmanian vandalism of their old growth forests is just one aspect of the Australian Government’s disregard for the environment. If there’s a dollar to be made, then hang the consequences.Various Tasmanian governments have contributed to this wholesale vandalism so we have both sides of the rather limited political spectrum contributing. Deomocracy in Australia? Don’t make me laugh.
A Wilderness Society donation volunteer repeated to me what was said to him by an old Tasmanian in the street one day…… “We’ve got rid of all the niggers, now we’re workin on the forests.”
Gunns directors Including ex premier Robin Gray are truly corrupt criminals as is the present Premier and next in line for Gunns directorship Lennon.
I meant to say ‘Gunns dictatorship Lennon’. Sorry folks, the stress is getting to me. Revolution comrades!!
My latest car sticker is slightly off the point but its the same principal of protecting our indigenous ecosystems not raping them as Gunns does.
“Ban Duck shooting in victoria”
“Big Guns – Little Di-ks”
I would just like to let all you stupid arsewholes know that your wrong!!! I have carefully and considerately studied the pulp mill set to launch at Bell Bay. and Christine Milne you havent stopped this pulp mill like you THINK you did the last time. that was because of a change in plan with the company not you… why cant you ever come to an agreement? why is it so hard to see you ever say anything nice? you greens are a pack of brainless arsewholes with no common sense or no sense of apprciation all of you losers… yeh thats right you havent won an election LOSERS grow up!!!!!!
I am writing a submission to the Canadian government and in particular, the Auditor General about the same thing. What is different about this submission is that I’m using the language of business to prove my points: Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.
Business will never get the message without it being communicated in a language it understands.
While the poisoning of species is not permissable in Canada, clear cutting itself achieves the same thing – the wildlife is wiped out. In effect, poisoning is likely touteds as more humane than slow starvation.
Anyway, I hope my submission will be able to help.
Please e-mail me back so you can receive a copy.
the local paper (www.themercury.com.au) has articles everyday in it about the pulp mill. you can also reply to the articles.
as a tasmanian, i am glad that i live in the south of the state so that i wont have to look at the pulp mill or smell its toxic fumes.
i feel for residents if launceston and the tamar valley.
this project has bullshit written all over it.
the premier only got in on the last election on the basis that this pulp mill would be the cleanest in the world.
shortly after the election, he heavys the planning commission, which falls apart, only to change the planning legislation to suit him to get the mill through. and now the facts are coming out that this mill is first of all in the wrong location, and also breaks every environmental guideline in the book.
this is no longer a ‘green’ issue. it has moved far beyond that realm.
tasmanian politics and integrity is at stake.
if it comes in, i am seriously out of here.
its the dumbest thing i have heard in a long time. its so 18th century.
the adage that ‘my fathers father was a logger, my father is a logger, and therefore i should be a logger’ is complete bullshit.
tasmania has the lowest rate of year 12 (basic level of education) graduation in the country.
this is clearly why it needs so many unskilled jobs such as logging and pulp mills, and this is clearly where paul lennons votes are coming from.
stand up people.
I dont know how anyone could defend these Gunns arseholes.There are plenty of other ways to make money .If shit is going to hit the fan I am coming down to Tasmania along with thousands others I am sure,and we will fight this on the ground.
I just found this site and followed it through thinking I was looking at some archives from 2005, then I got to the comment by Jim R, this month, May 2007! How heartening it is to hear that people from somewhere else will come down to Tasmania and help us. Gunns are the biggest landowners here and they think they are the only ones who count. Lennon is helping them in that belief, but he will find out at the next election that John Gay only has one vote like the rest of us, no matter how much of Tasmania he owns. But the next election is 3 years away and we need help now. The threat of the pulp mill in our midst is just horrifying, we have been fighting the corruption allowing – no, enabling – it, with all we have, and I don’t doubt we will stop it but we need numbers. There are only 500,000 odd people in Tas. and some of them are against us! But we are not the noisy minority by a long shot. I live 9kms from the proposed site . This valley is too beautiful to lose! (And now Gunns are buying up on the mainland, too.)
All Australians should protest vigorously to the Federal Government about any logging of native forests in Tasmania. And logging old grouth forests for paper pulp must be banned all over the country. This is a disgusting state of affairs. The forests will dissappear,
the land will degrade and our future populations will wonder why we let them cut the trees down for PULP !! STOP THIS DESTRUCTION NOW !
How long will it take for the people who run Gunns in Tasmania to realise they are only destroying themselves? It is 200 years of colonisation that is still continuing. The mental formations are all negative.
It almost seems that the Tassie Government are in bed with Gunns Ltd as this company is getting away with environmental rape and destruction.
No company should be above the law and if the local Government cannot make them (Gunns Ltd) accountable then surely Mr beds are burning is in a position to act in the best interest of the nation.
This is a clear example of the breakdown of state and Federal responsibilities which needs fixing up.
In 2008 1 spent $4,500 on a holiday to Tassie to see the wilderness, not to see forests being destroyed or the ugly mills of Gunns.
I am committed to seeing that my great grand children can do the same as I did and not go to a museum in hobart to see the great forests of yesteryear.