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Five years after the Tasmanian government signed the Regional Forest Agreement with the Commonwealth, the state is still engaged in a frenzied conversion of native forest into plantation. Ninety percent of the state's timber is now turned into export woodchips to make paper.
The sustainability of this $1 billion a year industry is still the most hotly contested issue in the state. But Sunday's investigation doesn't debate whether woodchip is a fitting end for Tasmanian forests, or even whether logging in old growth forest should continue. Because, whether you're for or against the way that forestry is conducted in the state, all the parties have agreed to codes of practice and a system of self-regulation to ensure that the trees remain a renewable resource.
However, Sunday has found that what passes for self-regulation is really no regulation at all: the industry's use of poisons to target native fauna is indiscriminate; rare and endangered forest species simply don't get accounted for in logging plans, and those who seek to alert regulators to breaches of the forestry code of practice are silenced. There are calls for a Royal Commission into the whole sorry affair.