The chairman of Tasmanian timber giant Gunns Ltd says there is "no chance" Tasmania will avoid having a new pulp mill.
Speaking at the company's annual general meeting in northern Tasmania today, John Gay said Gunns' proposed $1.5 billion pulp mill would be "as good as any pulp mill in the world".
"This pulp mill will be built in Tasmania, some time or another," he told ABC radio.
"I don't think that there's any chance that Tasmania won't get a (new) pulp mill."
Emotions ran high on both sides of the pulp mill debate today as Mr Gay announced an $87 million profit for the 2006 financial year – down from $101 million the previous year.
Conservationists protested outside the Launceston meeting, calling for the withdrawal of what they described as a "native forest-fed, chlorine-bleaching pulp mill".
The head of the US-based World Temperate Rainforest Network, Pat Rasmussen, also presented 4,000 letters from children calling for an end to logging of Tasmania's high-value forests.
Mr Gay dismissed the letters.
"How could (American) children know about the forestry operations in Tasmania," he told the ABC.
US-based singer-songwriter Dana Lyons – famous for his song Cows with Guns – said outside the meeting Gunns shareholders should be aware of the role they played in deforestation.
"Gunns' pulp mill will exacerbate the existing problems in Tasmania's forests," he said.
The pulp mill proposal has been subjected to intense scrutiny since its 7,500-page draft Integrated Impact Statement (IIS) was submitted to the independent Resource Planning and Development Commission (RPDC) earlier this year.
In September, Gunns was forced to correct an error in a report about dioxin levels.
Last month, RPDC executive commissioner Julian Green told a directions hearing a "considerable amount" of work was still required to satisfy guidelines and address deficiencies in the draft IIS.
But Mr Gay said today the pulp mill would benefit the company.
"Most certainly, it's in the interest of the shareholders and ... it's only the minority that's here today that's against the pulp mill," he said.
"The pulp mill is as good as any pulp mill in the world. It will have a very clean environmental outcome and Gunns has said before it will not build a pulp mill unless it meets the RPDC guidelines."
Mr Gay said he was prepared to live with the approvals process and urged anyone against the pulp mill to take their concerns to the RPDC.
"At the end of the day, the umpire's decision will be final," he said.
An earlier pulp mill at Burnie, owned by Amcor, closed in the late 1990s. An integrated paper and pulp mill, near Hobart, is operated by Norske Skog Boyer.
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