“Eco-Terrorists”? – Exclusive Revelations
By Sarawak Report
Ta Ann logging in Tasmania’s old-growth forest areas
Sarawak Report can disclose that the connections between Tasmania’s primary industries and the Chief Minister’s cousin, Hamed Sepawi, are far more extensive than previously publicised.
These worrying links not only threaten the integrity of old-growth forests back in Tasmania, they are also working to wreak destruction over vast swathes of the Borneo Jungle, as Taib‘s hugely controversial mega-dam project gets underway.
Tit for tat deal?
We can reveal what would appear to be a tit for tat deal, whereby Sepawi, appointed by his cousin as Head of Sarawak’s state electricity company, has offered a massive hydro-electricity contract to Hydro-Tasmania at the same time as his private timber venture, Ta Ann, has been allowed to benefit from subsidies and logging in Tasmania’s conservation forests.
Sepawi is the major shareholder and Executive Chairman of the logging giant Ta Ann, which was brought into Tasmania in 2008 with the help of massive subsidies from the Australian state.
However, so far, the company has achieved nothing but losses for the state’s forestry industry and is controversially obtaining its wood from conservation forests.
Despite this, Tasmanian Ministers have doggedly supported the venture and ignored concerns about corruption and human rights issues in Sarawak, where Sepawi is a key member of a demonstrably illegal family regime.
These Ministers have also chosen to ignore protests about false advertising by Ta Ann, which promotes its Tasmanian products as “eco-friendly”.
