The certainty and cooperation that has finally marked the Tasmanian timber industry in recent months is under threat from the axe of the Liberal party, writes Lyndon Schneiders.

Less than two weeks out from the Tasmanian election, Prime Minister Tony Abbott is trying to reignite the long-running forest wars in a calculated bid to drive a wedge between the timber industry and environmentalists.

In 2012, industry and environmentalists joined forces to produce the Tasmanian Forest Agreement, a groundbreaking accord that ended 30 years of division, secured the timber industry and jobs, and protected iconic forests.

Now the Prime Minister seems intent on attempting to wedge apart the industry and the environmental groups as part of his wider assault on environmental protections.

Mr Abbott aired his support for the timber industry and reaffirmed his Government's intent to delist the new Tasmanian World Heritage forests at an industry dinner in Canberra this week.

No doubt some in the timber industry will be tempted by Mr Abbott's new-found strong interest in their sector, but before getting too excited, perhaps they should ask a Qantas or Holden worker what they think of the Prime Minister's fulsome support for their industry and their jobs.

Indeed, the notable thing about Mr Abbott's speech was the complete absence of any specific practical measures of support for the industry or any new funding.

Rather, all the Prime Minister had to offer was some old-school greenie bashing, some feel-good references to the good old days and his youthful enjoyment of timber boats, and the promise of conflict.

What was missing was any vision for the future of the industry or any recognition that the previous industry model, based on export woodchipping, had collapsed in the face of the high Australian dollar and a desire by international markets for wood products that were not sourced by logging old growth and high-conservation-value forests.

Instead, we saw only from Mr Abbott his ingrained instinct to campaign rather than govern.

The Tasmanian Forest Agreement is an unprecedented initiative in which the timber industry has thrown its support behind the formal protection of old growth and wilderness forests, and in return environmental groups have agreed to provide strong support in the marketplace for Tasmanian timber products.

The agreement also includes a joint commitment to seek the internationally acclaimed and recognised Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) accreditation for Tasmanian timber.

The agreement has also paved the way for World Heritage Protection of 170,000 hectares of high-conservation-value tall forests including the Styx, Florentine and Weld Valleys

The first tangible result of the agreement has been renewed investor confidence in the Tasmanian timber industry after a sustained period of controversy, conflict, massive job losses and the closure of large timber firms including one-time giant Gunns.

However the industry remains in a deep financial hole with markets lost, infrastructure in disarray and with the authority charged with managing the forests and selling logs, Forestry Tasmania, on financial life support.

Yet despite the industry's precarious situation, Mr Abbott's solution is for the agreement to be destroyed and for the destructive forest wars to recommence.

This strategy makes no sense for an industry that needs a new start, not a throwback to the bad old days.

At the centre of Mr Abbott's campaign is the proposal to remove World Heritage protection for 74,000 hectares of forest.

Major timber industry figures in Tasmania including the chair of the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania, Glen Britton, and the executive director of timber processor Ta Ann Tasmania, Evan Rolley, have publicly called for the World Heritage listing to be retained.

Mr Rolley recently told the Australian newspaper that "buyers of Tasmania's timber products simply no longer want products from contentious forests and are even less likely to touch those from forests granted World Heritage status for outstanding natural values".

Even more inexplicably, the Prime Minister's call to arms against the agreement has occurred only days after the Tasmanian newspaper, the Examiner, released polling showing 90 per cent support among Tasmanians for a forest agreement.

This polling, commissioned by the Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources on behalf of the Special Council of stakeholders set up to implement the forest agreement, is consistent with previous polling in Tasmania that showed that Tasmanians want a win-win outcome in which the magnificent, towering forests are finally protected and in which real jobs are created through sustainable logging of regrowth native forests and plantations.

This is what Tasmanians want, this is what the timber industry wants, and this is what the environment movement wants. The signatories are still fully committed to the agreement despite reports in the media. But not Mr Abbott and his colleagues in the Tasmanian Liberal Party.

The options for the industry and for Tasmania if Mr Abbott succeeds in his attempt to reboot the forest wars are bleak.

Instead of certainty and cooperation, the next 18 months are likely to be characterised by a knock-down fight in Australia and internationally to convince the World Heritage Committee to retain World Heritage protection for those forests Mr Abbott wishes to destroy.

There is another way and the environment movement continues to strongly support both the industry outcomes and conservation objectives of the agreement.

In September last year I joined with representatives of the Tasmanian Government and the timber industry in Japan to brief potential purchasers of Tasmanian forest products about progress made in the implementation of the agreement and the new era of cooperation in Tasmania. This briefing was met with great enthusiasm by the markets.

Mr Abbott is due in Japan in the next several weeks. What is he going to say to that same audience?

Lyndon Schneiders is the national director of the Wilderness Society. View his full profile here.