The Gunns Saga - not over yet

[Matilda]

Gunns, once the billion dollar super company of Tasmania, is today on its knees and needing its pulp mill — a project now seven years old and still without finance — to simply stay in existence. Its share price is abysmal and it reportedly owes millions to its principal supplier of trees, Forestry Tasmania.

Ironically, to get a funding partner that will help finance the mill Gunns now desperately needs the support of conservationists — the much-vaunted social licence.

Last year, with their markets collapsing and their industry in crisis, the Tasmanian forest industry sued for peace with the conservationists and began talks about getting out of native forest logging. Gunns pulp mill was never meant to be part of these discussions.

But the worst kept secret of recent months is that Gunns sought to play those negotiating on behalf of the environment movement like a cat with a mouse. Bill Kelty — recently appointed by the Federal government to facilitate these talks — has finally made the secret deal the conservationists were offered public and explicit.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/45622.html


I wondered what was going on when Gunns suddenly seemed amenable to environmental concerns; now it's clear where they're coming from. It seems both Gunns and Keelty have miscalculated, big time.