Australia: Another 550 people do Direct Action to halt ancient forest logging
The tussle over the future of an old-growth forest in Tasmania is
continuing, with 550 protesters marching along a logging road today.
Environmentalists say they have once again blocked the road into the
Upper Florentine Valley, which is west of Hobart on the edge of
Tasmania’s wild south-west region. They have used tree sits and cars
to blockade the road and are now waiting to see if Forestry Tasmania
or the police will try to remove them. Ali Alishah, spokesman for the
protest group Still Wild Still Threatened, said the mood at Saturday’s
protest was positive. “It was really morale-boosting for the people in
the trees,” Mr Alishah said.
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Campaigner Jack Lomax, 80, said in the next three weeks action would
be stepped up at Forestry Tasmania’s Melville St office and he urged
people to turn out in force and defy police instructions to move on.
The former face of the Wilderness Society, Geoff Law, was one of
several speakers who addressed the group that gathered before the walk
up the controversial 4km logging road into Coupe FO44A. “When the
bulldozers come back here I will be back and I hope you will be too,”
Mr Law said as protest action heated up in the forest and in the city.
The gathering was made up of people from all walks of life and all
ages and included many first-time protesters. Dodges Ferry retiree
Larissa Dienarr said she had never participated in forest actions but
had been encouraged to attend by a friend.
“You know, you read all of
the stories and see the pictures but it is not until you come here and
see the destruction just from building a logging road that you
realise,” Ms Dienarr said. “I am just amazed that someone could do
this. “I urge all people to come and see it for themselves and
experience the calm and peace before they make up their mind.” No
police or Forestry Tasmania employees attended yesterday but when they
return they will find a new, intricate tree-sit blocking the road. An
old Datsun 180B has been given a new lease on life as a protest aid.
It has been chained and buried across the road that will be used to
log the forest. On the other side, an underground protest chamber is
being built. The action came on the same day Wilderness Society
spokesman Vica Bayley received word that the Forest Industry
Association of Tasmania had declined an invitation to attend a
community debate on forestry issues.
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FORESTRY Tasmania has blasted protesters, saying they like breaking the law to gain attention.
Derwent district forestry manager Steve Whiteley described the actions of protesters in the Florentine on Saturday as a publicity stunt.
He said Saturday’s protest again breached an exclusion zone, which had been put in place to protect people’s safety.
“It is clear they believe breaking the law generates more publicity than peaceful protest,” he said.
Forestry says it offered the Wilderness Society a chance to apply for permission to hold an event in a state forest.
“If the activists had applied for this permission, Forestry Tasmania was willing to temporarily lift the exclusion zone to allow the protest to take place in a peaceful manner. Instead, activists chose to break the law once again,” Mr Whiteley said.
Activists had “established tree-sits and other structures in the forest that endanger their safety and that of our staff and contractors”.
But Wilderness Society spokesman Vica Bayley said Forestry had refused an invitation to share a public meeting to discuss a solution.
“They have the option to lift the exclusion zone anyway – we shouldn’t have to apply,” he said. “They shouldn’t be logging in highly contentious old-growth forest like the Upper Florentine.
“The road they are building is over 4km long and will access several hundred hectares of old-growth forest for clearfelling and burning.”
Mr Whiteley said 90 per cent of the Upper Florentine catchment was unavailable for harvesting.
“Our plans this year are to harvest 25ha using a variable-retention technique developed by Forestry as an alternative to clearfelling,” he said.
But Mr Bayley fired back that Forestry’s “long-term plan for the Upper Florentine is tens of kilometres of new road and dozens of logging coupes predominantly for woodchips”.