CANBERRA, Australia, October 4, 2007 (ENS) - The Australian government today gave the go-ahead for construction of a $2 billion pulp mill on the island state of Tasmania that conservationists have been fighting for months. Gunns Ltd. company will build the mill at Bell Bay in the pristine Tamar Valley.

Annoucing the decision today, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Malcolm Turnbull said the government is imposing "the world's toughest environmental conditions on the proposed pulp mill in Tasmania's Tamar Valley, including independent scientific and environmental monitoring."

The state of Tasmania off Australia's southern coast as seen from space. The white streak is fog over the Tamar Valley, where the pulp mill will be built, and the Midlands. (Photo courtesy NASA)

The government set 16 conditions relating to the management of effluent from the pulp mill, including stringent levels which if exceeded will mean the mill must close until such time as an advanced effluent treatment process that produces high quality water is put in place.

Maximum dioxin levels in the effluent discharged from the mill will be required to be almost four times more stringent than world's best practice.

And 17 conditions were set relating to the protection of both listed threatened and migratory species, including measures to protect the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle, the Tasmanian devil, fur seals, whales, dolphins and rare native vegetation.

But these conditions and others imposed by the government do not satisfy the Australian Greens, who said in a statement today, "The big parties have behaved shamefully by giving approval of this polluting mill and its destructive impact on forests and the marine environment. They've fallen far short of the mark we should expect of governments and potential governments on the environment, and the electorate will be reminded of that all the way to election day."

Australians will soon go to the polls. Although the exact date of the election has not yet been announced, it is expected to take place in November or early December, with 33 to 68 days' notice.

One of the most vigorous opponents of the mill is Greens Senator Bob Brown, who represents Tasmania. "Gunns pulp mill will have a forest furnace attached to it, which will burn 500,000 tonnes of forest wood per annum, next to a pulp mill which at the outset is going to have 80 percent of its resource stock of native forests," Brown said in a speech last month.

"In other words, they are going to create a massive factory to burn the carbon banks or chemically break up the carbon banks now sitting there in the Tasmanian valleys and mountains holding back climate change, and they are going to promote the transformation of those great saving forests into an added hit on the global climate change phenomenon," Brown said.

Turnbull said the government is imposing an unprecedented number of conditions on the mill. "In the draft recommendations of my department released in August, 24 conditions were imposed on the proposed pulp mill," he said today. "In response to Dr. Peacock's advice, the number of conditions has now been doubled to 48."

The Wilderness Society, a community-based environmental advocacy organization, said today that the guidelines "fail to adequately address the concerns of Tasmanians about the damage this mill will cause."

On August 9, The Wilderness Society's court case against the federal government and Gunns Ltd was dismissed on all grounds. The group filed an appeal five days later, which has not yet been heard.

"The decision is further evidence of a flawed assessment process that will result in extensive damage to Tasmania's native forests, waterways and the health of people living in the Tamar Valley," the group said.

Gunns' pulp mill will consume four million tonnes of wood a year for pulping and burn 500,000 tonnes of wood to generate power every year.

"At start-up, 80 percent of this will be sourced from Tasmania's irreplaceable native forests," the Wilderness Society mourned. "Areas including the Great Western Tiers, North-East Highlands and Ben Lomond will be clearfelled to supply wood to Gunns' pulp mill."

"The approval means not only will our marine environment be polluted by 64,000 tonnes of effluent every day, but logging of native forests for Gunns' proposed pulp mill will see over 10 million tonnes of greenhouse gases released, further driving global warming," the group warned.

More than 11,000 people rallied in the northern Tasmanian city of Launceston on June 16, in a showing of community opposition to the pulp mill proposal.

"It is unthinkable that in the 21st century, a government would condemn these wild places of endangered species habitat to be logged and turned into pulp. Yet, this is what has been approved by Malcolm Turnbull's decision," said the group.

Australian Forests Minister Eric Abetz said the decision has been made and it is time "for all fair-minded Tasmanians to accept the science and end the division over this issue."

Big changes are planned for the Tamar Valley. (Photo by Kym Della-Torre)

"It would be fair to say the result was not necessarily as Gunns would have liked it - requiring the toughest and most costly standards anywhere in the world," he said.

He called Greens and Wilderness Society opposition "predictable."

"The fact is," sneered Abetz, "a pulp mill in Tasmania could emit fresh air and spring water and they would still oppose it."

Senator Brown said the Greens would support a pulp mill which met the following conditions:

• No native forests, totally plantation-based wood source and no further expansion of the plantation estate
• Not a Kraft (sulphur-based) pulping process
• Totally chlorine-free bleaching sequence
• Closed loop (recycled effluent)
• Should have a paper machine as part of the process to maximize jobs and wealth creation
• Must have the support of the local community

Opposition environment spokesman Peter Garrett, the former lead singer of the band Midnight Oil, and leader of the Australian Conservation Foundation, has been silent on the Gunns pulp mill decision.

Senator Brown says Garrett has given voters no choice between the Howard Government's Liberal Party and Garrett's Labor Party by backing with the government's decision to approve the Gunns mill.

"Peter went missing and lost his nerve, his backbone," said Brown.

The Australian Conservation Foundation, ACF, said today that Turnbull's decision to approve the Gunns pulp mill is "a tragedy for Tasmania's forests and the marine environment of Bass Strait."

"Mr. Turnbull has imposed 48 conditions on the mill, but the minister's decision leaves Tasmania's high conservation value forests and marine environment with dozens of new problems," said ACF Forests Campaigner Lindsay Hesketh.

"The conditions do not stop Tasmania's old growth forests being logged to feed the mill, with the accompanying destruction of biodiversity and the release of around 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gas polluting carbon dioxide each year," said Hesketh. "The conditions do not stop toxic effluent being dumped into Bass Strait."

"A world's best practice pulp mill is closed-loop, chlorine-free and fed by plantation trees," he said, "not old growth forests."

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2007. All rights reserved.