Hydro Tasmania called to pull out of Sarawak

Posted on December 4, 2012 by rowenadelarosayoon

Trouble never ends in this tiny bit of island, south of mainland Australia. If you don’t know Tasmania, you probably need to watch Hollywood blockbuster, The Hunter, to get a clue. Tasmania covers a pristine wilderness where exploiters could miraculously disappear and would never come back alive. Of course, this is an exaggeration.

Protestors at Hydro Tasmania daming it involvement in Sarawak (Photo: Sarawak Report/ FB)

However, there is an interesting turn of events. The trouble is not about the local Green groups accusing Forestry Tasmania, Ta Ann or the Gunns Ltd. of Tasmania’s forest destruction. Instead, the state-owned dam builder, Hydro Tasmania, is implicated in a colossal environmental threat in the Province of Sarawak on the island of Borneo in Malaysia.

Hydro Energy is commissioned to “provide technical support” to Sarawak Energy who is currently building the multi-billion dollar Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE). The project involves 12 highly controversial dams projected to produce 28,000 MW of power.

Local and international indigenous groups and communities denounced the project saying the dams will “flood huge swathes of the Borneo Jungle and destroy the lives of tens of thousands of indigenous people along with their cultures.” Exodus of people have begun.

The Sarawak Report said Sarawak Energy has a link to the Ta Ann Group– also maliciously imputed in the crime of exploiting Tasmanian forests and the jungle of Borneo. They are said to have a close link with the Tasmanian government, the report adds.

Both Sarawak Energy and Ta Ann have the same Chairman in Hamed Sepawi, the cousin and close ally of Sarawak Chief Minister, Taib Mahmud, who exercises an iron grip over this notoriously corrupted East Malaysia state.

The Borneo Project, a forerunner of environmental campaigns in Sarawak said Sarawak Energy is “not consulting with communities in good faith, and is not getting the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent of the affected communities.”

There is an overall lack of transparency; Sarawak Energy is not sharing their environmental or social impact assessments, feasibility studies, and resettlement plans. Meager compensation benefits will force communities into poverty.

International civic organisation have thrown support to condemn the dams. Groups include the Borneo Project (USA), the Bruno Manser Fund (Switzerland), the Rainforest Action Network (USA), International Rivers (USA), the Rainforest Foundation Norway and the Sarawak Report (UK), and many more.

Save Rivers Network stage a protest against the dams (Photo: Save Rivers Network)

These groups demand that the Federal Government of Australia and the State Government of Tasmania to live up to their commitments to protect indigenous rights and the environment. They asked Tasmania Premiere Lara Giddings to immediately pull Hydro Tasmania and all its subsidiaries out of Sarawak. Read their petition to Giddings HERE.

These groups said that despite Australian Government’s commitments to indigenous rights, Hydro Tasmania shares responsibility for the destruction of Sarawak communities. They also demand that the Tasmanian government severe all ties with Sarawak Energy and take a stand for environmental conservation and indigenous rights. Sarawak is home to over 40 indigenous communities, as well as many vanishing species, including the orangutan. Conservationists said the proposed dams threaten to destroy some the last remaining rainforests in Borneo.

Sarawak Delegates visit Canberra (Photo: Sarawak Report/FB)

The Australian Greens have joined the activism and have launched a national campaign in November calling for the withdrawal of Hydro Tasmania and the Tasmanian Government from the controversial project.

Australian Greens Leader Senator Christine Milne and Lee Rhiannon said Hydro Tasmania cannot walk away from their responsibility for the damage these dams will cause to thousands of villagers in Sarawak. Milne said “Hydro Tasmania continues to supply staff and technical expertise to push these projects along despite a growing campaign in Sarawak against the dams. I am calling on Hydro Tasmania to walk away from this destructive project.”

In other development, delegates from Sarawak arrived in Australia to have dialogues with Hydro Tasmania and local officials.

Indigenous leaders from the Sarawak met with Hydro Tasmania’s CEO Roy Adair in Launceston and Tasmania’s Deputy Premier Bryan Green. The final public event will be held in Hobart on December at the Republic Bar in North Hobart at 7 pm.

Sarawak delegates flash a banner denouncing Hydro Tasmania in Sydney (Photo: Sarawak Report/FB)

Peter Kallang, chairman of the Save Rivers group of Sarawak Indigenous leaders and James Nyurang, village headman from the Baram River Region, joined the Australian tour and called on Hydro Tasmania to pull their support out of controversial dams.

Adam Burling, spokesperson for the Save Sarawak Rivers Tour said,

Meeting with the CEO of Hydro Tasmania has meant that the people of Sarawak could directly request Hydro Tasmania to withdraw from the controversial dam projects. Hydro Tasmania continues to supply staff and technical expertise to push these projects along despite a growing campaign in Sarawak against the dams, and deplorable human rights violations.

Kallang added Australians need to know Hydro Tasmania is involved in massive dam proposals that stand to affect up to 20,000 people who live along the Baram River in Sarawak.

Anti-Hydro Tasmanian protest in Melbourne (Photo: Sarawak Report/FB)

Nyurang said, “If the dams go ahead I will lose my home, my land. I have no idea where my family will be moved to or how we will make our livelihood.

Hydro Tasmania’s involvement in Sarawak will help to flood thousands of hectares of land belonging to the indigenous peoples of Sarawak. This will spell the end of our heritage, our means of livelihood, custom and culture. We will not stand by while our homes, our rice fields, our fruit trees go under water, James Nyurang said.

Sites of 12 controversial dams in Sarawak (Photo. Borneo Project)

Sites of 12 controversial dams in Sarawak (Photo. Borneo Project)

The delegates will continue to have public events in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, and Launceston. They met some members of the Parliament in both Upper and Lower Houses, including Victorian and New South Wales members from the Australian Greens. Watch the press conference HERE.

Blog Link: Asian Correspondent

Tasmania grapples with forest destruction and job losses

Posted on March 7, 2012 by rowenadelarosayoon

Tasmania is grappling with the paradox of saving its environment in the face of massive job losses. While Green activists are fighting for the protection of old growth forests, thousands of forestry-related jobs have to go. The ABC reported the state is projected to lose about $1.4 billion dollar from its wood industry while thousands of people have been thrown out of job.

No job vacancy sign posted at a sawmill in Tasmania

For a small state such as Tasmania, livelihood depends on forestry, agriculture and mining. Tasmania is the sixth and smallest state in Australia, an archipelago of more than 300 islands, 240 kilometres (150 miles) south-east of the mainland.

Green activism has intensified in the region over the last few years in the wake of alleged forest destruction made by Malaysia-owned Ta Ann Group. Left-wing Greens have accused the contractor as an exploiter of the state’s old-growth forests. The same contractor, they claim, has ravaged the jungle of Borneo in Sarawak.

Penan man standing next to a Shin Yang Timber passing truck loaded with logs. (Photo: Sarawak Report)

It is an irony. Ta Ann won an award as an emerging exporter in the Tasmanian Export Exports Awards in 2008 only to alert environmentalists of the impending catastrophe wrought on the state’s old growth forests.

Last year, the Huon Valley Environment Centre (HVEC) accused Ta Ann of receiving wood from old growth forests as defined by the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement on at least 35 occasions during 2009-2011. HVEC claimed the contractor is processing wood acquired from the logging of old growth forests, high conservation value forests, and forests with recognised world heritage values in Tasmania. “Ta Ann’s demand for native forest wood and its large wood supply contract is driving logging in some of Tasmania’s most important and contentious forest areas…. Ta Ann’s operations here in Tasmania are far from eco-friendly and must rank amongst the worst logging practices globally…” HVEC claimed.

Activists have campaigned the government to prevent further logging in the disputed conservation area. The Observer Tree launched a vigil early this year to press Prime Minister Julia Gillard to stop the Ta Ann Group from further logging in the last remaining old-growth forests.

An intesified campaign against Ta Ann in Tasmania (Photo: HVEC)

The Observer Tree is one among the guardians of Tasmanian forests along with the Last Stand which has been involved in direct action and campaigns related to nukes, forests, refugees, human rights, whaling and climate change, among other causes. These groups support similar causes advocated by Friends of the Earth, Kanuguba, Rising Tide, Huon Valley Environment Centre, Still Wild Still Threatened, the Greens and the Wilderness Society, GetUp!, Market Watch, and other civic groups.

In 2011, the Gillard Government came up with a plan to protect Tasmania’s forest by signing a pact that covers the protection 570,00 hectares of forest lands. About 430,000 hectares belong to the high degree of conservation while the remaining 143, 000 hectares was allotted to help the state honour its logging contracts. Gillard also signed a $172 package to fund the transition from native forest to plantation forest.

This historic deal, however, did not stop tensions already disrupting the forestry business. Green activists are apprehensive that Ta Ann’s contract will continue to destroy old growth forests.

Tasmanian forest in ruins

Activists have also directly lobbied consumers and clients of Ta Ann to stop buying logs from the company.

While jobs have to go, however, it becomes clearer that the Government has no option but to kowtow importers to buy Tasmania’s logging industry.

Tasmania’s Deputy Premiere Bryan Green has embarked on a $24,000 trade mission to Singapore, China, and Japan over the past week to promote the state as open for business.

Green said the trade mission was not solely focus on the wood industry but an opportunity to forge stronger trade relations with East Asia.

“We have a robust economy which we need to continue to grow and diversify to attract investment and jobs… The Government has faith in the Tasmanian brand and the opportunities that it can provide in sectors like agriculture, renewable energy, mining and forestry, “ the vice premiere’s website noted.

The Last Stand crew, along with the HVEC and Code Green, welcomed the vice premiere back upon his arrival at the airport. They, however ridiculed the trade mission and created a new name for Ta Ann as the huge walking, talking Pinocchio. The crew said the wood products are far from “eco-friendly” contrary to the advertising claims of Ta Ann.

In an email loop accessed by Asian Correspondent, the crew said:

“Ta Ann, one of Malaysia’s biggest wood cartels is ripping through the Tasmanian wilderness, sourcing wood that comes from the destruction of high conservation value forests and selling it in Japan as ‘eco-friendly’ plywood.”

The group solidifies its resolve to recruit more supporters to write letters to existing and prospective clients of Ta Ann urging them to stop buying wood sourced out from Tasmania’s old growth forests.

News Link: Asian Correspondent