Crossborder Greens campaign to close woodchip mill

The view from the woodchip mill over Twofold Bay is stunning. Activities on the ground remain deeply disturbing. We had the opportunity to walk to the top of the mill where the conveyor belt moves the woodchips across the mill to the container ships.

The three Greens MPs came together for this visit to help step up the campaign to close the Eden chipmill, stop the destruction of native forests and develop a package to restructure the industry and retrain the workforce.

From our discussions with the chipmill management and observations of the mill's operations it is clear that the need to shutdown woodchipping operations are as urgent as ever.

Since the woodchip mill was set up in 1969 by Daishowa Paper Manufacturing Company over 35 million tonnes of native forest chips have been exported, mostly to Japan. Nippon Paper, now the majority shareholder, records healthy profits because it pays next to nothing for its native forest logs.

Sue, Deb and I met with Peter Mitchell, General Manager, and Peter Rutherford, Forestry Manager, of South East Fibre Exports Pty Ltd. While they were helpful and willing to answer our questions their current plan to expand the chipmill to include a biomass energy plant is deeply troubling.

At a time when the Eden Chipmill should be wound down management are publicly spruiking their biomass energy plan that would lock in native forest logging for years. The SEFE management team promote the proposed biomass plant  as clean energy that would take 80 per cent of its fuel from waste generated within the chipmill.

The bulk of this waste – sawdust, bark, shavings and undersized woodchips – comes from native forests so if the proposed multi-million biomass plant was constructed there would be further pressure to log and chip local native forests for decades to maintain a fuel source for the plant.

The NSW government should rule out the proposal before any further time and money is wasted on this exercise.

There is mounting evidence that natural forest systems can store larger amounts of carbon than previously understood. And now the forests in south eastern Australia where logging has occurred and the vegetation is being allowed to re-grow undisturbed have been identified as having one of the highest rates of carbon storage.

In contrast woodchipping operations boost greenhouse gas emissions.

Our visit to the chipmill prompted us to do the sums on what SEFE should pay for their carbon pollution. We have sent Peter Mitchell an invoice for the $181 million cost of the carbon pollution generated as a result of 2006/7 logging. This is in fact a conservative figure using an Emissions Trading Scheme based on $10 per tonne of carbon dioxide. Sir Nicholas Stern in his report to the British government put a value of $107 per tonne on carbon dioxide. Using this figure the invoice would rise to $1.9 billion

Sue, Deb and I visited the chipmill on the first day of spring. It was good to be together and on the far south coast. Our resolve to work with the locals and all those committed to depositing this destructive industry in the dustbin of history is strong. Local groups, like Chipstop have campaigned on this issue for years.

In coming months we will step up the Greens campaign to close the woodchip mill and stop the logging of native forests.

Then the NSW south east coast would have the same status as the Victorian Wilderness Coast.

That is the legacy we need to work for – a Wilderness Coast joining NSW and Victoria with woodchipping relegated to the Eden Museum along with the whaling industry.