Wow! What an exciting day! Today marks the beginning of an awesome and hard-hitting campaign targeted towards the Japanese companies buying wood from Ta Ann that has come Tasmania’s high conservation value forests.  90% of the Ta Ann group’s plywood is being sold to Japanese companies, including Panasonic, Daiwa House, Sekisui House and Eidai.

For those that haven’t done so already… click here to send an email to those companies, calling on them to stop sourcing wood from native forests.

Today is just the beginning! This campaign has the potential to really create some change for Tasmania’s forests. Many of Japanese companies involved seem to promote themselves in different ways as being environmentally conscious. It is important that they know that purchasing veneer from Ta Ann is implicating them in the ongoing destruction of ancient forests and that people all around the world are calling for this to end.

It is a great lead in to our upcoming Global 24 Hours of Action too. This action will  show these companies just how much people around the world want to see the destruction of these forests stopped.

Here are the recommendations being made to the companies:

• Cease to take wood supply from Ta Ann whilst they:

–  source wood from highly contentious old growth and high conservation value forests already identified and recommended by the Intergovernmental Agreement on Tasmania’s forests – this is recommended for an area comprising 572 000 hectares

–  demand legislated supply from native forests

–  fail to meet timber procurement guidelines set down by your company

• Correct any claims regarding wood source and the ecological sustainability of Ta Ann’s product
• Request a genuine plantation-only wood source for product from Tasmanian forests
• Require Ta Ann to move to a plantation-only wood supply within a defined period, making a rapid transition out of native forests
• Require that the wood supply from Tasmania meets timber procurement guidelines that specifically exclude the purchase of timber made from Australia’s high conservation value native forests, and from primary forests overseas. Forests like those in Tasmania, which are identified for protection by all environment groups, should be excluded. In addition, such policies need to give preference to plantation timber with full Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification. PEFC certification is totally inadequate for Australian product.

Thanks to our friends at Huon Valley Environment Center, The Last Stand and Markets for Change for all their awesome work on today’s campaign launch. For more information check out: www.taann.com.au

Stay tuned for more details on Ta Ann and the campaign. And don’t forget to add your name to the cyber action!

Hope you all had a great day! Sorry for not blogging yesterday.  Last night was a very hectic evening, with some wild winds! My tarp just didn’t want to stay hooked into the guttering. Even when I put 20ltr water container there to hold it down, the wind just flipped it up! It was hard to stay completly dry, but I managed to fair okay in the end. It was definitely the windiest weather I’ve had so far up here. The new wind generator was getting a good run though!

Talk to you tomorrow,
Miranda