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The dark side of Tasmania |
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Tasmania: we traveled all over the world and decided that this is the place where we wanted to live. Majestic mountains, huge wilderness areas protected in national parks, a wild coastline open to the storms of the southern oceans, we like extremes. We knew about the environmental problems down here, we knew about the destruction of old growth forests, about logging, about the way in which even the rural landscape is increasingly turned into rows and rows of monotonous pine plantations. After all, there really is no place in this world, where one can escape the destruction of our natural environment all together. And we are realists as well. We wouldn't want to live without such modern things as hospitals, we drive cars, we use electricity. Tasmania seemed the best compromise to us, the most of the good with as little as possible of the bad. We accepted that. But not for a long time. Our first autumn in Tasmania opened our eyes.
Huge plumes of smoke rose on the horizon and literally turned the day into night. These are the legal burns carried out by Forestry Tasmania and contractors. In an age where everybody is worried about global warming and co2 emissions, it is unbelievable that such practices are used. We traveled to the Styx Valley and had a look at forestry practices in this ancient valley where the swamp gums can reach heights of eighty to ninety metres. What we saw there was even more devastating and we wrote about it here. After three and a half years in Tasmania we can say, we love Tasmania and we would not want to live anywhere else! But, it is no longer possible to just sit on the sidelines and watch the struggle of those dedicated to saving this beautiful place. It is no longer possible, to just look at the huge national parks and ignore the government sponsored vandalism taking place in the state forests and the intimidation of all those people prepared to stand up for a sustainable future of Tasmania, for a future that does not include the building of one of the world's largest pulp mills. An introduction into Tasmania's current crisis: Tasmania's well known author Richard Flanagan wrote the following article in Hobart's newspaper, The Mercury, on Saturday, April 12th 2008. It is a brilliant summary of the current situation in Tasmania, where the majority of the people are against the pulp mill, but the government ignores them and supports a private company politically and financially, where democracy has been abandoned and turned into something else, where political scandals seem to be exposed on a weekly basis.
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