AUSTRALIA: Pulp Exports Anger Greens

SYDNEY, Dic 24 (IPS) - The Australian government's decision this week to continue exporting wood pulp made from rare native forests threatens to explode into a major political issue in an increasingly green-conscious nation.

Resources Minister David Beddall decided this week to renew 13 woodchip export licenses for another year. Green politicians and activits say this runs counter to the recommendations by Environment Minister John Faulkner to save 1300 fragile eco- systems from the axe.

The decision has also triggered a bitter debate within the ruling Australian Labour Party (ALP) about the government's environmental policies.

Tasmanian senator John Devereux resigned Thursday from the ALP in protest, describing the government's policy as a "return to the cut-it-down-and-ship-it-out mentality of the 1970s".

Some 45 ALP members of parliament had written to the Prime Minister earlier in the month asking him to exercise "strong leadership" to save Australia's native forests. Beddall was seen as too pro-industry by his colleagues.

"We are appalled at the decision," Kevin Parker, spokesperson for the Wilderness Society told IPS. "We have been sold down the river in a fashion which is absolutely breathtaking."

A recent poll in five capital cities recently showed 80.3 percent of Australians disapproved of cutting native forests for export to Japan as woodchips.

In August at the annual meeting of South Pacific leaders in Brisbane, Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating attacked Asian logging companies for destroying native forests in the South Pacific island countries, describing these practices by Malaysian and Indonesian companies as "environmental piracy". He offered Australian expertise to stop the plunder.

"While our PM stands up to give advice to South Pacific countries on how to save their forests, in Australia we are clearing our forests at a faster rate than even Brazil. There is a double standard there," says Parker.

Australian Conservation Foundation's executive director Tricia Caswell says the the decision cannot be undone because the minister has already signed the licenses.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service