BOTH sides of the environment debate were stunned last week at the speed of profound changes in forestry taking place in Tasmania.
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The symbolism was palpable.
Inside a week, one of the last bastions of the forest industry in Tasmania, the Triabunna woodchip mill, was sold off by the flagship of the forest industries - Gunns - to a wealthy consortium of environmental philanthropists, who not only agreed to keep the woodchip mill open for a few years but chose a veteran conservationist, Alex Marr, to be its general manager.
At the same time signatories to the forests peace talks were fast approaching a final resolution, involving an end to logging in high conservation value forests - whatever that means - and the preservation of another 572,000 hectares.
More than half of Tasmania is now under some form of protection.
Gunns sold off the silver to preserve its ultimate aim of a pulp mill in the Tamar Valley.
The few thousand forest workers left in the state could but observe from the sidelines and wonder.
Governments in Canberra and Hobart were marginalised on the periphery, craning their necks to get a look at the action.
The once-great forest industry could merely whimper like a tethered goat, abandoned in the jungle.
The Greens' federal and state leaderships have been slightly smug in their reaction. They wield enormous, disproportionate power in their parliamentary theatres.
Their minders ought to sit them down and instruct them in the art of winning and humility.
While the Gunns sale to Jan Cameron and Graeme Wood's $10million offer was understandably a business transaction, requiring business prudence and decision- making, Gunns ought to remember the investment that taxpayers have injected into its Tamar Valley pulp mill, and the investment in human endeavour that has seen strong premiers like Paul Lennon become casualties, with their careers cut short.
While Gunns has explained why it accepted the Cameron-Wood deal ahead of the Aprin offer, which allegedly involved a higher bid, the former timber giant should remember how it got this far, and to what extent it should safeguard the future of its loyal workforce.
- BARRY PRISMALL, deputy editor
