10 YEAR RFA REVIEW FINDS SERIOUS SHORTFALLS — GREENS POSITION VINDICATED

The Tasmanian Greens today said that the 10 year Review of the Regional Forest Agreement found that the forest industry had failed to implement sufficiently commitments to openness and accountably, failed in the protection of threatened species, and failed in the area of even providing measurable data to show any social and economic benefits. Greens Shadow Native Forests spokesperson Tim Morris MP said that the Tasmanian government must now commit to releasing a timetable for reform, stipulating how and when each recommendation will be acted upon, and to also guarantee that regular public reporting against the stipulated timeframe will occur. Mr Morris also said that, although the Greens believe the RFA Review Recommendations take a minimalist approach to work needed on carbon and climate change, the fact that the review does recognise that climate change and the Tasmanian Forests does need to be considered, is a break-through.

“The Recommendations contained in the 10 year Review of the implementation of the RFA has backed the Greens’ position that the forest industry is still failing to properly protect threatened species and is still not being open and transparent as they constantly claim,” Mr Morris said. “The RFA Review has made 43 strong recommendations designed to rectify the significant shortfalls across all areas of the industry and the challenge for the new Minister, Mr Steve Kons, is to ensure that these recommendations are implemented promptly and fully.” “We are calling on the Minister to issue a timeframe by which the 43 recommendations will be implemented as well as ensure that the public receive regular reports as to whether those timeframes are being complied with or not.” “Significantly, this Review has criticised the Forest Practices Authority for not providing an adequate access to planning information that demonstrates how values will be protected and has recommended that they improve access to information that they hold.” “Many of the commitments made by the state government in the original RFA and the subsequent supplementary agreement have not been adequately met, these include public access to information, management plans for reserves, protection of the boundaries of existing reserves, threatened species protection and catchment management planning to protect water values.” “One recommendation also states that the industry needs to improve the collection and public reporting of data on the carbon balance and climate change;this is an issue where the Greens have been strongly critical of the industry in recent years.” “The Tasmanian Greens made a submission to the Review providing evidence in relation to many of the areas that have now been acknowledged as serious by the Review’s recommendations, and so we welcome these recommendations and will be keeping the pressure on Minister Kons to ensure that they are implemented fully and without any undue delay.” “We would like to thank Mr John Ramsay for giving fair consideration of both the written and verbal submissions that that were made to the review by the Tasmanian Greens,” Mr Morris said.. Fri Mar 2008 11:03 (10 months ago)