Last night at midnight the current so-called “conservation agreement” was set to expire. This agreement had been intended to preserve 430,000 hectares of high conservation value forests from logging while talks continued about its future status. Yet, the agreement never lived up to it’s name and failed to provide conservation of the full area. In fact 43 logging coupes that Forestry Tasmania wanted to log, in most cases to supply wood to Ta Ann, were excluded. Our on-the-ground surveys have shown that about half of those coupes have already been subject to logging and roading operations now.

Last nights lapse of the agreement was an opportunity for the government to make a new conservation agreement that would protect the full area of forest that is currently being negotiated over. 563,000 hectares has been verified by independent scientists as being of significant national and world heritage value. However, the government choose to instead renew the same incomplete conservation agreement, extending the deadline until the end of August.

What we have seen in Tasmania’s forests over the past six months is continuous destruction in areas that are ear-marked for protection.

Today we are launching a new project called “A Forest A Day” in order to highlight this ongoing destruction and the values of those forests that are being lost with every new logging operation. This project will also show case some of Tasmania’s most unique and significant ecosystems including areas that remain intact, yet that remain under threat due to continued exclusion from  the conservation agreement.

We hope that this project will show the world the value of these magnificent forests and inspire you to get on board and help to protect these areas. Please take a moment to sign the cyber action, sending a message to the corporate customers of Ta Ann.

Every day in July we will profile a new area of forest or logging coupe that is under threat or that has been logged in the period of time when it should have been under a moratorium.

We will kick of tomorrow by featuring one of Tasmania’s most significant tracts of tall eucalypt forest and wilderness areas; Butlers Gorge. Watch this space for your daily forest information and spread the word! It’s time for the world to know the truth about Tasmania’s forests.

This project is a collaboration with Still Wild Still Threatened, Huon Valley Environment Centre, Markets for Change, The Last Stand, Code Green and other grassroots forest campaigners in Tasmania.