Tasmanian specialty timber workers may have Federal Government backing in their bid to have their craft recognised by UNESCO. Source: ABC News
The specialty timber sector wants access to about 9000 hectares of World Heritage-listed forest.
It believes Tasmania’s cultural history in timber crafting should be recognised by the United Nations in a similar way to the state’s Indigenous heritage.
Richard Colbeck, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Federal Minister for Agriculture, said he may back the bid.
“I think that’s a proposition that could be considered,” he said. “I think the boat building tradition in Tasmania, particularly using timbers like Huon pine, is a significant element of our culture.
“If you go to the west coast and listen to the stories of the piners who worked on the west coast in very, very harsh conditions gathering Huon pine right back through the last century, it is without question part of our cultural heritage.”
Craft timber workers argue there is insufficient supply of specialty species trees outside of Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA) to support their work.
Kettering boat builder Andrew Denman hopes to convince UNESCO monitors travelling to the state in the next year of the special needs of the craft timber sector.
He hopes UNESCO will recognise Tasmania’s history of European timber crafts and facilitate access to World Heritage forests for specialty species harvesting and logging.
“Tasmania has a very long European history in the woodcraft industry and we have a substantial intangible cultural heritage,” Mr Denman said.
“What the current decision does in refusing access to those specialty timbers — it actually places our intangible cultural heritage in danger.”
Mr Denman stressed he was not suggesting the specialty timber sector was in competition with the state’s Indigenous heritage, but that both should receive UNESCO protection.
“I would strongly call on the Wilderness Society and the other [environmental non-government organisations] who are lobbying against access to the timber in those areas to publicly show that the areas [outside the World Heritage] to supply our industry can actually do that,” he said.
Tasmania’s Indigenous community has dismissed the state’s long colonial history of timber crafts as comparatively trivial. The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre’s State Secretary Trudy Maluga is indignant about the comparison.
“It is a bit trivial in comparison to thousands of years, but of course they do have their perspective and I wish them luck with Premier Will Hodgman,” Ms Maluga said.
Conservationist group Environment Tasmania claims there are up to 10,000 hectares of specialty timber trees available for harvesting by timber craft workers outside the TWWHA.
When pressed, Environment Tasmania’s spokesman Andrew Perry said the specialty species trees were throughout the state but did not offer specifics.
“There is more specialty timber in the production forest area than what they’re saying they need out of the World Heritage Area,” he said. “I believe there are tens of thousands of hectares of appropriate resource for the specialty timber cultural argument.”
UNESCO repeated its request to the Australian and Tasmanian governments to provide more detailed information on the Aboriginal cultural value of the TWWHA.
Indigenous groups accuse both governments of dragging their heels on that assessment.
Tasmania’s 1.6-million-hectare World Heritage Area covers about a fifth of the state. It is mostly national park, although parts classified as conservation area, regional reserve, or Future Potential Production Forest land, could at least hypothetically be made available for timber harvesting.
The Tasmanian Government has ruled out mining or “large-scale” logging within the WHA but has not yet indicated whether it will amend a draft management plan to reflect those restrictions.
Specialty timber groups believe they were left with an extremely restricted resource after the Tasmanian Forest Agreement was finalised in 2013 and new tracts of forests were declared off-limits.
The agreement was repealed by the current Tasmanian Government in 2014.
