At the company's annual meeting in Launceston yesterday, Gunns boss Greg L'Estrange said that it expected adequate federal government compensation for its workers, contractors and shareholders as it pulled out of native forests.

Greens forest spokesman Kim Booth today said that taxpayer's funds should instead be spent on hospitals, schools and essential infrastructure.

"Gunns Limited have already been the beneficiaries of hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies, they receive a virtually free wood supply due to arrangements with the out-of-control agency Forestry Tasmania, and if anyone should be paying compensation it is Gunns, not the long-suffering taxpayer," said Mr Booth.

"Gunns are restructuring because business as it stands has collapsed, and there is no way that any more public money should be paid to bail them out. Enough is enough."

Mr Booth also said that the Greens stood firm on their opposition to the proposed Tamar Valley pulp mill.

"Gunns say they are now reliant on the Tamar Valley pulp mill proposal, but that proposal has never been properly assessed, does not have a social licence, does not have a water pipeline, and has no federal permission to dump 64,000 tonnes of effluent in Bass Strait every day," Mr Booth said.

"There is no way that the Greens, or the people of the Tamar Valley, will allow this pulp mill proposal to go ahead."

Mr Booth went on to say that instead of asking for another public hand-out, Gunns should return their share of the hundreds of millions of dollars of public money that had been poured into the forest sector during the past decade.