Tasmania agrees to logging moratorium
mongabay.com
May 30, 2007
Forestry Tasmania, the forest service of Tasmania, has signed an agreement with environmental activists to cease logging activities in the Upper Florentine Valley of the island. The moratorium will last through federal elections this in October.
Forest in Tasmania. Tasmania is an island located off the southeastern coast of Australia. Photo by Nancy Butler.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is symbolic but allows Forestry Tasmania to upgrade existing roads and collect harvested timber.
"Hopefully, this MOU will be the building block for further mature interaction between FT and activists," said Assistant Derwent Forest Manager Rod Hill.
The agreement ends a tense standoff between environmentalists and loggers that has seen protests and roadblocks in remote forests. Activists say that loggers are destroying Tasmania's biodiverse forests using napalm and clear-cutting to establish timber plantations.
Among biologists Tasmania is well-known for its endemic wildlife, though most larger species, including the Thylacine or Tasmanian Wolf, have gone extinct since the island's settlement.
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