The Wilderness Society is asking for our help to stand up for our future to help stop Gunns' carbon polluting pulp mill in Tasmania, and protect our forests, climate, and our future. They want us to write to the Environment Minister Turnbull with the message -
"STOP THE MILL." To get our message across
How strongly do you feel about this issue? Or do you even care?

Tasmania is home to the world's tallest hardwood trees. And export woodchipping giant GUNNS Ltd is the biggest player in the destruction of them. Protecting our forests is the most immediate and cost-effective way to tackle climate change. According to statistics 18% of global carbon pollution currently comes from deforestation - greater than the emissions of the global transport sector.

The latest venture of Gunns Ltd is to build an enormous, forest-hungry pulp mill in the beautiful Tamar Valley which would contribute more than 110 million tonnes of carbon pollution to our atmosphere over the next 25 years - that's equivalent to all transport on Tasmania's roads for the next 80 years.

Unbelievably, the agreed assessment process for this forest-hungry pulp mill has been thrown out the window, perverting legal democratic processes. Gunns withdrew from the agreed assessment process earlier this year and entered into a fast-tracked approval process with the support of the State Government. As a result, the contributions of dozens of experts critical of the pulp mill's impacts have been sidelined.

Federal Environment Minister Turnbull announced his conditional approval of the pulp mill on 4 October, effectively giving Gunns the go ahead to proceed.

Not only will the pulp mill destroy our precious forests and worsen climate change, it will also dump thousands of tonnes of poisonous effluent into the waters of Bass Strait every day - waters that the marine life rely on for survival and that local fishermen and their families rely on for their livelihood.

It could cause the extinction of some of the struggling wildlife.
Scientists predict a 97% risk of extinction for the endangered Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle in North East Tasmania if planned logging goes ahead.

"Scientists predict a 97% risk of extinction for the endangered Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle in North East Tasmania if planned logging goes ahead."

That logging would be going ahead with or without the pulp mill.

When Foxy and TWS and the ACF and Bob Brown and all of their "gung ho - stop the world" friends face the unchallengeable fact that the population of planet earth is increasing at an alarming rate, I will support them. There is a pressing need for birth control in many nations, especially around this part of the world.
While demand for paper and wood products continues to escalate at a compounding rate there is always going to be a demand for Australian products from an Australian renewable source that cannot be met from existing manufacturing resources.
Let's move away from dependency upon overseas manufacturers. Lets stop importing $mega worth of timber that comes from forests that are not cared for by a well run forest industry.
Currently wood chips are exported, processed and returned to us with a premuim attached.
What is wrong with supporting Australian workers doing Australian jobs and supporting Australian communities?

The pulp mill equals industry, value adding and jobs. I am 100% in favour of GUNNS.

Frankly I see no good in any so called environmental agency.

Foxy

I don't like your chances, given the history of the industry aligned, sycophantic state and federal environmental agencies in this country. Their record on environmental and community health protection is abominable and speaks volumes. More to our shame, the good people of this nation remain silent.

The first ABC URL reveals how Mr Turnbull's department and the Dept of Transport ignores community appeals by their takeover of Western Australia's airport land to appease one Mr Buckeridge, who is constructing a large brickworks operation.

The brickworks will not be part of WA's regulatory or inspection system. How will this company be monitored from Canberra?

Already there are four large brickworks operating in the heavily populated area, where hazardous emissions are contaminating the environment and damaging community health.

http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/wa/content/2006/s1627963.htm

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:4hyRlhiZ0LQJ:www.parliament.wa.gov.au/hansard/hans35.nsf/edf12eb560968afa48256c460024a927/5b824ee0ff73646a4825722c001e86fa%3FOpenDocument%26Date%3D2006-08-16+airport+brickworks+size+western+australia+buckeridge&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=au&lr=lang_en

http://www.edowa.org.au/publications/articles/8_Watchdogs.pdf

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/s479641.htm