Forest deal breaks public trust: Brown

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown said in Hobart today that the deal struck between Forestry Tasmania CEO Bob Gordon and federal independent facilitator Bill Kelty was a breach of public trust in the forest principles process.

"Mr Kelty says 'let me place on record our appreciation of Bob Gordon and Forestry Tasmania for your support in this difficult process' - no mention of environmentalists."

"Mr Gordon says 'Mr Kelty believes an agreement may be possible, if a proposed pulp mill at Bell Bay proceeds', and to add insult to injury adds that 'by necessity, some coupes in the area proposed by ENGOs for reservation will be logged over the next six months'. That is, the
proposed moratorium has been dumped."

"The Australian Greens saw that the iconic forests of Tasmania had become too expensive for the industry to continue logging. The industry came to environmentalists to help rescue it, not the forests."

"But now the industry is calling the shots and going for a massive taxpayer funded injection of funds to keep logging in native forests, on a broad scale, for the next 16 years at least. That's not on. We will oppose the public purse being robbed to fund further forest destruction
or the Gunns pulp mill," Senator Brown said.