TULLY'S trademark sugar mill is under threat as another 1000ha of caneland in the region goes under trees, worried mill directors said yesterday.

Cassowary Coast Regional Council approved a change to forestry for four Tully cane farms, a number of councillors professing to voting with their heads not their hearts.

Tully Sugar general manager John King said they faced a "watershed" vote.

"The eyes of the sugar industry are on you today," Mr King told councillors.

A single application would not shut down the mill, Tully Sugar chairman of directors Dick Camilleri said.

"But council planners need to look further down the line," he said.

"The tree people have made it well known they are looking at 1000 to 1500ha per annum, and that’s for just one company, not the several who are investing here."

The mill had already lost 3000ha of land to managed forestry investment schemes over the past couple of years, he said.

Town planners said their recommendation was based on forestry being encouraged in the planning scheme for "good agricultural land".

Applicant Great Southern described teak plantations as "very, very intensive forms of forestry".

But Deputy Mayor Mark Nolan said he believed the sugar industry was significantly more labour intensive.

"This is a conscience vote for me," the former South Johnstone Mill worker said before he recorded the sole vote against the four applications.

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