Sustainable Timbers Tasmania (STT) is notorious for their lack of environmental and community care. Whether it’s the post logging burning season that happens every year resulting in mushroom clouds polluting the air and community rainwater tanks and escaped burns that end up burning the surrounding landscape; or the lack of stakeholder consultation and due process when logging forests that impact biodiversity, our waterways and local communities and businesses.
Blue Derby Wild and a number of people who live and work in the area have attempted over the years to be recognised as stakeholders and included in the consultation process to provide a clear voice that articulates and advocates the need for the protection of the native forests and biodiversity of our area. Our emails, phone calls and requests for meetings have been disregarded. STT instead restricted consultation to Dorset Council, the chair of the Blue Derby Foundation and a representative from the Tasmanian Industry Council of Tourism (TICT).
STT are once again attempting to gain Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification, an industry standard they’ve failed at every attempt to gain due to their native forest logging practices and poor community consultation practices.
This ongoing behaviour by STT highlights why independent auditors refuse their attempts to gain full FSC certification. They have failed on each attempt due to their environmental practices, and lack of social license due to their lack of care for the community and our needs. As we continue to advocate for the protection of our Gondwana native forests, it seems not much is changing. We are recording these failures in community consultation for STT’s next attempt to gain FSC certification.
If you have your own records of failed consultation and ongoing unsustainable logging practices by STT, document them with images, written reports and copies of your attempts to engage as stakeholders. We need to hold STT accountable, and make sure their Greenwash rebranded title does not hide the reality of what goes on behind the logging buffers.