Tasmania is one of the last strongholds of the temperate rainforest. The counterpart of the tropical rainforest in the cooler climes is just as endangered as its tropical cousin.

The forest in the tropics is under pressure not only from loggers but also from land hungry farmers who are forced to clear the forest to grow food for their survival. This is not the case in sparsely populated Tasmania where the only pressure comes from the timber industry.

Tasmania has land clearance rates on a par with a poverty-stricken tropical forest nation. In the path of the chainsaws is a unique range of species. Like its tropical counterpart, the temperate rainforest is also a biological powerhouse. According to a vocal and well organised Green movement in Tasmania what is happening in their

According to the State Government and the logging industry, that is complete nonsense. They say that Australia's smallest state is pursuing a policy of sustainable harvesting.

As part of its coverage exploring differing concepts of sustainable development, Earth Report comes this week from the southern most state of Australia.

Tasmania: a part of our world heritage
One fifth of Tasmania (1.38 million hectares/20% of the island) has been declared a World Heritage Area not only for its unique flora and fauna but also for aborigine cultural and archaeological remains.

There are no pureblood aborigines surviving in Tasmania. It took less than a century for the European settlers to wipe them out through conflict and disease. Even by the standards of 19th century colonisation, it is one of the most shameful episodes in British colonial history.

In the next century the settlers continued to tame the land. Believed to be a threat to their sheep, the settlers wiped out the Tasmanian tiger, a kind of marsupial equivalent of the wolf. The last one died in a Zoo in the capital city, Hobart, in 1936.

But there is still a lot of wilderness left in Tasmania and species survive that have either disappeared from the mainland or are about to do so. The Tasmanian devil that went extinct on the mainland before the Europeans arrived thrives on the island; the Bettong is found no-where else; the Potoroo is easy prey to foxes on the mainland, but is still common in Tasmania; the eastern Quoll, the closest marsupial equivalent to a cat, may be extinct everywhere but Tasmania where its population is stable.

Species endemic to the island include the burrowing crayfish and giant velvet worm. The giant velvet worm is a vulnerable species. Fossil records show it has gone unchanged for hundreds of millions of years. They are survivors from a time over two hundred million years ago, when Tasmania was part of Gondwanaland, the supercontinent that once linked Australia with Antarctica and South America.

The crayfish and the velvet worm are among over 600 endangered species on Tasmania. Most are not mammals but invertebrates adapted to living in micro ecosystems. A single 30-hectare timber concession can wipe out an entire species and no one - save possibly a few scientists - would be any the wiser.

Woodchip wonderland
In the early 1800s, the target for the loggers was hardwood tree species such as Huon pine. Prized for its water repellent qualities, Huon was quickly logged out in all the most accessible places. Most of the other hardwood species such as celery top pine are also restricted to the reserves.

Today, the timber industry is almost exclusively about woodchips. The Tasmanian forest is being turned into paper and cardboard in Japan and other Asian countries. Though not much bigger than Wales, Tasmania exports more woodchips than any other state in Australia. Over 6 million tonnes of woodchips are exported each year. That means an estimated 22,000 hectares of native forest are being logged in Tasmania every year. And the rate of clearance has doubled over the last decade. Despite this, Forestry Tasmania - the state forestry agency - says it adheres to a 'sustainable' strategy.

This strategy allows for some native forest to regenerate naturally. The forestry people defy the conservationists to point out a single case where their activities have lead to the extinction of any species. Within 80 years the regenerated forest will be ready for harvesting again. To ensure that the pressure on the native forest outside the protected areas is relieved, fast-growing eucalypts plantations are being established.

Sensitive to criticism from outside, the State Government spokesmen tirelessly point out that 40% of Tasmania is protected. That's eight times more than Switzerland, an area with a similar land mass and way above the minimum protected area target set by WWF.

Woodchip hell
Although the same set of statistics are employed by the timber interests and the conservationists the twain does not meet. Conservationists claim that certain practices are having an impact on wildlife. Two particular forestry practices alarming campaigners are: large-scale clear felling and monoculture plantations.

Clear felling involves cutting down every tree and then burning the forest floor. After the area has been reseeded, 1080 poison is laid to keep the possums and wallabies from eating the commercial seedlings. The conservationists say the practice should be banned on the basis of cruelty alone since the animals die an appalling death.

Even if the forest were allowed to grow back, an old growth forest is a complex and mature forest ecosystem almost impossible to replicate, explains the Wilderness Society. Tree hollows only form in trees over 100 years old. Wildlife like bats, possums, owls, sugar gliders and quolls need hollows to survive.

While the Greens concede that decades of hard campaigning has given Tasmania more protected area per capita than any other Australian State, they point out that only a third of that protected area is covered by trees - the rest is grassland and bare rock.

The Greens main complaint is that the State's forest regulation system is entirely in the hands of the forestry interests. For example, the loggers themselves run the Forest Practices Board. Only a forestry company can appeal a decision.

Forestry Tasmania says that the timber industry is a vital source of employment in Australia's poorest state, providing 8000 people with a living. The conservationists say this is a gross exaggeration and point to Australia's official Bureau of Statistics that says that just 3000 are employed.

If the latter figure is correct, then forestry is an expensive activity for the industry has received a US$35 million subsidy to keep it going.

For reasons of sound economy and ecology, campaigners would like to see an end to the logging for woodchips. Tourism, they say, would provide a better, more sustainable alternative. California earns nearly as much from the tourists that come to see its redwood trees as Tasmania does from woodchips.

Coming to a head
The Styx Valley - just a 90 minutes drive from Hobart - is one of the world's last strongholds of old growth Eucalyptus regnans, the tallest flowering plant on Earth. These 400-year-old giants tower up to 95 metres high.

To properly protect these trees, campaigners would like the Tasmanian Government to declare the Styx a 'Valley of the Giants National Park' (15,000 hectares). They also want the Australian Federal Government to nominate the Valley as an extension to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.

Other valleys that need protecting according the Wilderness Society are: Huon, Picton, Weld, Florentine, Derwent, Counsel and Navarre Rivers - a further 50,000 hectares. The Tarkine Rainforest Corridor in the north-west occupies 20,000 hectares and is also threatened with proposed logging after 2002.

The conflict between the loggers and the conservationists is coming to a head over the fate of these forested areas lying outside the protected areas network. When the Earth Report team visited Tasmania they noted that the bulldozers were not slowing down. 24 hours a day contract truck drivers take their cargo to the woodchiping mills on the coast.

Conservationists have despaired of the State Government to intervene to save the unprotected forest. So have some mainstream politicians such as prominent Labour Senator Shayne Murphy who used to be a trade union leader for the timber workers. He's now quit the Labour party to campaign as an independent against an industry that is ruining what he sees as Tasmania's most precious asset. All conservationists view the State Government as an exclusive mouthpiece of the forestry interests. Medical doctors, even vets, are forming pressure groups to back the established conservation groups. Their final hopes rest on public opinion in Tasmania, throughout Australia and internationally to stop the chainsaws and safeguard what remains of the old growth native forest outside the reserves.