One Reason to Consider Building the Tasmanian Pulp Mill

Value Adding is fine as long as it's Innovative, Cutting Edge and State Of The Art. World Class Competitiveness is Very Good.

And Preferably Capitalised.

The rest of your argument is fine, btw :-)

I'm all for value-adding.As farmers we've been talking about that for years. But I'm not convinced that pulp processing and gobbling up either old growth hard wood forests or prime agricultural land for plantations is the way to go.(cost-effective plantation trees can't be grown in poor agricultural areas)

From what I read, Gunns can only do what it does at a profit through an assortment of Government subsidies. In a beautiful, tourist and prime produce state like Tasmania, wouldn't that assistance be much more effective if it were to be given to small timber millers, cabinet makers and craftspeople? All these things blend well with the environment and add value both in the product and as tourist destinations and attractions for small towns.

Where I live, the community has always hoped for one big industry to 'save' our town. I argue that it's a false hope and we should be working on making the place appealing to small business, through visual appeal, zoning of suitable sites and through chasing up high tech facilities. After all, as we know from the abattoir that opened with great fanfare, and closed and re-opened and closed again, one big business can go with a stroke of someone's pen, devastating everyone around. 20 small businesses, each employing 2 - 20 people are unlikely to go belly up at the same moment and so the whole town is far less vulnerable to mass lay-offs.

The same applies to Tasmania to my way of thinking. But I don't live there - and sadly I don't live in Wentworth either!

Value adding?
in the not too distant future, these forests, on a pure economic basis will be worth more, in carbon trading by leaving them in the ground.
Dont believe what they say about plantations - its all fudged figures - these trees suck up massives amounts of water.
we can value add by leaving them where they stand.
and if you wnat true value adding looking into the one tree project at artsup - like the commentator said before Gunns has ripped the heart out of small buisness. the Labour-Gunns accord has subsides a monster when it should be nuturing long term community investments. see also tasmaniatimes!

I don't disagree with your sentiments, Kim. My point is that chipping the trees and sending them off on a ship doesn't gain us much value. If we're going to cut them down regardless, then we may as well process them here and reap the rewards.

Whether we should fell forests to feed the mill is a separate argument. For the record, I'd rather they didn't.

im afraid the issue is deeply connected, as the die has been cast in one direction. If the Tasmanian government had decided to put tender for a project like this, then who had the most innovative design - which would have probably been are chlorine free closed loop system (one that didnt pour effluents into the sea, and wouldnt use high conservation forest to feed the mill) But we are not in that position. We're faced with a situation that is croneyville, where you do what can for a mate, even if it means long term economic and enviromental disaster for the state of tasmania. and if this pulp mill ever goes ahead
the people of tasmania in the future will be rueing the day they let it happen. and so now there is a widespread campaign against this disaster, which is running an old 19th century model of conquer and destroy. mark my word that will be no benefits to reap for the people of Tasmania, only a few people in the boardrooms who like rats will leave a sinking ship. and the tide is turning - the pro-mill major of launceston has lost his job.
the honest gut of it is that old growth, ancient forest, high conservation forest should be heading for the chipper at all! this land grab turning wilderness into woodchips is madness. if we are going to value add in pristine wilderness, then bring back licences for specialist, very small scale timber operators. have very select criteria for timber to be used for furniture, musical instruments, & wood turning and other cottage industry.
If gunn's cannot manage the land - (the land that the tasmanian government has stolen from the people and sold for a pittance) why should they have more and more to desecrate! energy sucking heavily subsidised conglomerate like Gunns WILL FALL and be swept away, when we realize how much of a terrible waste companies as noxious as this one is. it WILL happen, but the people need to wake up to what is really going on, to get informed before too much is lost.