The Pulp Mill and the Sea: a review of the assessment of Gunns' proposed pulp mill

This book is thus relevant not only in retrospect but also very much in prospect. Its purpose is to review the outcomes of the processes used to assess the pulp mill's economic, social and environmental impacts within the broader historical, geographical and community context in which they occurred. The unambiguous conclusion of the book is that these outcomes‚ÄövÑvÆand the processes that delivered them‚ÄövÑvÆwere seriously flawed. The post-RPDC processes used under the Pulp Mill Assessment Act, the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act, and the Scientific Panel assessed only a small subset of the pulp mill's potential impacts; were based on assumptions never subjected to full expert scrutiny; and lacked the openness, transparency and deliberation required of modern environmental assessments. These major deficiencies in how the economic, social and environmental impacts of the Tamar Valley pulp mill were assessed appear to stand in the way of the project ever receiving the wider support and legitimacy that the project's proponents now desire. For many, therefore, the acid test of a company finally and rightly concerned to secure its social licence to practise business in the Tamar Valley will be whether it is prepared to resubmit the proposal to a new, independent and public environmental assessment of the full costs, benefits and impacts.