Southern Tasmania update

South­ern Tas­ma­nia Spring D.A. Update

Lit­tle Deni­son — April
Over 80 peo­ple attend­ed com­mu­ni­ty protests over three days (April 27th-29th) in one of the last patch­es of high-den­si­ty old growth for­est in the Lit­tle Deni­son Val­ley, South­ern Tas­ma­nia.

The 1000 hectare area, which will be par­tial­ly cable-logged, is a nest­ing site for the crit­i­cal­ly endan­gered Tas­man­ian Wedge-Tailed Eagle and the endem­ic Deni­son Bur­row­ing Cray­fish.

Sun­day 27th, saw 60 com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers attend an Open Day facil­i­tat­ed by the Huon Val­ley Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre (HVEC), where peo­ple wit­nessed the bleak expanse where 300 year old trees are being dyna­mit­ed and cut down for the world’s largest hard­wood wood­chip­per, Gunns Lim­it­ed. That night, 20 activists remained in the for­est.

The first morn­ing rays shone upon an occu­pied plat­form, sus­pend­ed 60 metres up a Euca­lyp­tus, and the glint of a lock-on and log­ging machine con­triv­ing a scheme of stag­na­tion. Four for­est activists were arrest­ed; threats of phys­i­cal vio­lence and pep­per spray were made by the Police — a wor­ry­ing esca­la­tion in a recent trend. Blockad­ing con­tin­ued into the third day, even­tu­al­ly result­ing in the tree-sitter’s arrest.

Weld Val­ley — June
In 2006 Forestry Tas­ma­nia (FT) claimed that they were “devel­op­ing a tour­ing route that will make the Weld Val­ley acces­si­ble to all vis­i­tors”. Two years on and the road to the Weld is still closed to all traf­fic but log trucks, and FT’s adver­tised bus tours still haven’t start­ed.

In fact, their actions are in total oppo­si­tion to their stat­ed tourist inten­tions.

In ear­ly June, road­ing began into pris­tine native for­est, with full scale log­ging oper­a­tions to fol­low. This tract of for­est is direct­ly adja­cent to the wild and well-loved Weld Riv­er & Fletcher’s Eddy.

In imme­di­ate response 25 peo­ple con­duct­ed a walk-in along the new road, the first for­est protest under the reign of the new Pre­mier, David Bartlett. While an activist locked-on to a grav­el truck, Pre­mier Bartlett declared his con­tin­ued sup­port for native for­est destruc­tion.

Giant Gar­rett – Nation­al — June 5th
A Nation­al Day of Action high­light­ing the Aus­tralian Labor Party’s (ALP) fail­ure to pro­tect Tasmania’s ancient forests. Hobart, Mel­bourne, Can­ber­ra, New­cas­tle, Bris­bane and Dar­win all tar­get­ed Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Peter Garrett’s sup­port for the Tas­man­ian Region­al For­est Agree­ment (TRFA) and Gunns Ltd.’s pro­posed pulp mill, with giant effi­gies of Gar­rett as a ‘cli­mate crim­i­nal’.

ALP Envi­ron­ment Offices – Syd­ney — July 4th
Activists scaled the exte­ri­or of Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter, Peter Gar­ret­t’s 6 storey office build­ing to hang a ban­ner read­ing ‘The Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment is Destroy­ing Tas­ma­ni­a’s Old Growth Forests’ and a 5 metre high ‘Giant Gar­rett’ pup­pet.
“Peter Gar­rett and the ALP pay lip ser­vice to cli­mate change and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion while active­ly sanc­tion­ing the destruc­tion of ancient, car­bon dense forests. As we speak, the World Her­itage Com­mit­tee meet­ing in Cana­da is con­sid­er­ing the
impacts of log­ging on wilder­ness forests in South­ern Tas­ma­nia, with Min­is­ter Gar­ret­t’s office active­ly sid­ing with the forestry indus­try in this mat­ter,” a SWST spokesper­son said.

5 Tas­man­ian for­est activists were arrest­ed, after a heavy hand­ed police response to the peace­ful occu­pa­tion.

For fur­ther info & updates vis­it
www.huon.org
www.myspace.com/stillwildstillthreatened
www.huon.org/swstautumn.pdf
www.coolforests.org