Radiata pine grown across Tasmania’s largest farm will feed local sawmills and help divert harvesting pressure away from the state’s native forests, with every log from the 21,744-hectare Rushy Lagoon bound for the domestic construction market rather than export. That is according to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation’s investment statement, with the Tasmania Natural Asset Trust separately breaking its silence in the Mercury to reject claims carbon credits inflated its $142 million purchase, saying the price matched an independent CBRE valuation and came in below the vendor’s own LAWD assessment and expectations.
“This is low-quality, degraded agricultural land, not prime farmland,” a spokesman for the trust said, with the areas marked for plantations classified as marginal Class 5 and 6 country under the Tasmanian Land Capability Classification System by the state’s own Department of Natural Resources and Environment.
Responding to claims that a local buyer was locked out of the process, the trust said the market had years to purchase the property, noting that the estate of the late New Zealand farmer Allan Pye was unable to secure a sale at independently assessed market value despite marketing the holding several times from 2018 onwards. Gresham House ran a separate sale process for the dairy operation alone and received no conforming bids, with agronomists attributing the limited interest to poor infrastructure, soil quality, and distance to market.
The defence follows Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ approval of the sale, which cleared the trust, backed by $69 million from the taxpayer-owned Clean Energy Finance Corporation, to convert the estate into radiata pine plantations forecast to generate 3.2 million carbon credits and 5 million tonnes of timber. Dairy operations historically used 14 per cent of the property, the spokesman said, with current use covering 5 per cent of the land.
“TNAT is a new model for sustainable land management in Tasmania,” Gresham House associate director Dorian van Raalte said in the statement, committing to certification, transparent monitoring, and protection of the Lower Ringarooma Ramsar site.
Environmental specialists engaged by the trust found dairy run-off was already degrading the internationally recognised wetland, the spokesman said, and supported the change of land use, with protective buffers and hydrology safeguards designed into the project. Sustainable grazing will continue on country best suited to farming, he added, arguing the project is not a choice between food and timber because Australia needs both.
“We have heard nothing from the federal government,” Acting Tasmanian Premier Bridget Archer said, renewing her call for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to overturn the approval and keep the land in food production for future generations.
Backing the state’s fight, TasFarmers president Nathan Cox has demanded a parliamentary inquiry into how a foreign carbon-forestry fund outbid Australian farmers, promising the lobby will exhaust every option in its campaign against the approval.
With three dairies de-stocked, cattle sold interstate, and a tree nursery established ahead of planting, the conversion is already underway on a project the spokesman says will help ease Tasmania’s construction timber shortage. More than 190 roles are confirmed for contractors, sawmill operators, field surveyors, and planting crews across establishment, harvest, and restoration.
