source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/apr/21/australia.environment/print
I am writing this in our autumn, once Tasmania's most beautiful
season. But the china-blue skies are now nicotine scummed, as smoke
from the burning of old-growth forest floats over Hobart, an
inescapable reminder that the destruction of ancient woodland - like
no other in the world - is accelerating.
In Tasmania, an island the size of Ireland whose primeval forests
astonished 19th-century Europeans, an incomprehensible ecological
tragedy is being played out.
Recent calls from Britain to boycott Tasmanian goods and tourism are
not going to end logging. But in an Australian election year, with the
forests emerging as a major issue, they form part of a chorus of
international condemnation that shows Australians that the forests are
not just a natural resource, but are globally significant wild lands.
Rainforest is being clearfelled and then burnt with napalm. The
world's tallest hardwood trees, eucalyptus regnans, are being reduced
to mud and ash. And the monocultural plantations that replace the old
growths soak up so much groundwater that rivers are drying up.
