Letter to the Editor

 

Woodchipping industry needs an exit strategy, not another RFA

 

The Magnet (15/2/18) reported “consultations” held on 13^th February on the future of Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs).

Balanced media is good, but you don’t achieve “balance” by ignoring controversy.

Obviously I can’t speak for the woodchipping/ logging industry but I bet they felt just as let down as I did by the timid and inadequate coverage of this event.

Conservationists went to the venue to express disgust at the 20 year failure of the RFAs and reject the loaded, sham process adopted by State and federal Governments to roll them over indefinitely. Governments have made up their minds and the result is a foregone conclusion.

Your readers have a right to know this.

Native forest woodchipping is living on borrowed time and urgently needs an exit strategy.

It’s not a matter of “if” it will close, but “when.”

When the time comes the industry must not simply walk away from the environmental destruction it has caused or its obligations to workers and local communities, as so many mining companies have done in the past.

We don’t need another RFA we need an exit from this cruel, destructive industry.

The struggle to end woodchipping of native forests in this region is probably Australia’s longest running environmental campaign. It is not going to disappear just because a section of the media feels more comfortable ignoring it.

Harriett Swift

16 February 2018