Don’t let Gunns pulp our future
Together we’ve helped convince the ANZ bank to do the right thing and say NO to Gunns’ forest-hungry pulp mill. Now none of Australia’s big four banks will touch it, and you may have seen the recent media reports that Gunns isn’t confident of securing funding overseas.
The government approval deadline of 4 October is looming, and Gunns is obviously feeling the crunch.
To date, Prime Minister Rudd has supported this shameful pulp mill. But with government support for the mill in Tasmania waning, and with a lack of support for the mill from banks and other financial institutions, we are hopeful that Mr Rudd may be reconsidering his position. Right now I need your help to wake him up to the real cost of the pulp mill, the real cost of logging, and the real cost to our climate, communities and future generations.
Conservative estimates show that the pulp mill will increase the amount of emissions pouring into our atmosphere at a rate equivalent to an extra 2.3 million cars on our roads every year.
In addition to this, recent media has highlighted the new ANU findings that south-eastern Australian forests are some of the most carbon-dense in the world, and have the potential to sequester 25% of our annual emissions for the next 100 years. Logging the carbon-rich forests of Tasmania depletes the stored carbon bank, emitting massive amounts of greenhouse gas pollution.
It is outrageous, given the urgent threat of climate change, that the Rudd Government is even considering this carbon-polluting pulp mill.
In fact, the climate change implications of the logging have totally escaped any assessment in Government approvals.
Gunns still has a number of modules of its environmental management plan for the pulp mill requiring government approval. One of those modules includes the impact of 64,000 tonnes of effluent containing some of the deadliest substances known to science that is to be flushed into the Bass Strait - every day!
And while the approval deadline looms, unbelievably our government has indicated that they would be willing to consider an extension.
Enough is enough! Too many politicians have been dancing round this pulp mill already. Enough exceptions, excuses and fast-tracking of processes have already been made. With your help, we can convince the government that no further special allowances should be made.
Thank you for the difference you are making.
Paul IJ Oosting
Pulp Mill Campaigner
The Wilderness Society (Tasmania) Inc
