GUNNS clear-cuts and then firebombs the equivalent of 44 football fields per day of some of the most unique and ancient old-growth forests on Earth. These include the majestic Eucalyptus regnans (the world’s tallest hardwood tree, soaring up to 90m) and areas with documented World Heritage value. GUNNS turns over 90% of the forests it destroys into woodchips that largely become disposable paper products.

Now, GUNNS is poised to double its destruction of the forests with the construction of a pulp mill. The pulp mill, to be located at Bell Bay, would consume up to 4.5 million tons of woodchips annually. GUNNS presently exports around 4 million tons of woodchips each year. The construction of the mill would increase the clearfelling of Tasmania's native forests to supply enough trees to create roughly 8 million tons of woodchips each year.

Globally over 80% of the world’s old growth forests have been destroyed.  In Tasmania only 25% of old growth forest and less than 13% of the original Eucalypt (the world’s tallest hardwood trees) remain. Many of these trees are located in the Styx ‘Valley of the Giants’ or in the Tarkine, Australia’s largest temperate rainforest.

Despite being endangered the majority of these old growth forests are unprotected from logging and are currently suffering unprecedented destruction. GUNNS Ltd. is the largest native-forest logging company in Australia and the largest hardwood-chip company in the world. It is the driving force behind the destruction of Tasmania’s old growth forest, holding a virtual monopoly over woodchips and logging in the province. An average of 20,000 hectares of native forest are clear-cut and fire-bombed with petrochemicals each year in Tasmania. Over two thirds of this area is converted to ecologically barren plantations and 90% of the trees are turned into woodchips.

Moreover, under the legal protection of special exemptions from national and state laws granted to it by the government’s Regional Forest Agreement, GUNNS uses logging practices hardly ever found in developed nations and have routinely ordered the destruction of pristine areas identified for permanent protection by the United Nations World Heritage Bureau. The company is not even required to file environmental impact statements. GUNNS has attained huge profits by acquiring forest land for virtually no cost and avoiding Australian laws due to a Regional Forest Agreement.

GUNNS is the biggest native-forest logging company in Australia and the biggest hardwood-chip company in the world. It is also the biggest private company in Tasmania. As well as its huge forestry interests, it also owns hardware stores, vineyards and wine companies, and land developments.

GUNNS receives the overwhelming majority of logs destined for sawmills and woodchip mills in Tasmania. It owns all four export-woodchip mills in Tasmania. For most of the past four years, it has exported more woodchips from Tasmania than are exported from all mainland states combined. GUNNS exports over four million tons of native-forest woodchips each year. GUNNS now also owns mills in Western Australia as well. GUNNS owns over two thirds of the eucalypt sawmilling industry in Tasmania, and two major eucalypt veneer mills.

GUNNS is the driving force for the destruction of old growth forests in places such as the Tarkine, the Styx, the South-West wilderness and the North-East Highlands.

GUNNS has also cleared many thousands of hectares of native forest, including rainforest, on its private land. After these forests are chipped, the land is converted to plantations. (Over 17,000 acres of rainforest were cleared for this purpose in Tasmania between 1998 and 2005.)

See the company's website here: www.GUNNS.com/au

Some of GUNNS’ board members have very controversial backgrounds, including:  

Robin Gray – During his tenure as the Tasmanian premier, Gray attempted to dam the Franklin River and thereby became the environmental ‘villain’ of Australia’s biggest-ever environmental dispute (the dam was stopped in 1983). Gray also tried to log wilderness forests that are now in the World Heritage Area and to build a massive craft pulp mill (stopped in 1989). He was severely criticized as ‘deceitful’ and ‘dishonest’ by the Carter Royal Commission which investigated the 1989 parliamentary bribery scandal.

David McQuestin - McQuestin was prosecuted and convicted over his role in the 1989 parliamentary bribery scandal. The conviction was subsequently quashed by the Supreme Court. He was also heavily criticized by the Carter Royal Commission.  

Other members of GUNNS Board include:   R. Holyman C.A. van der Kley C.J. Newman