Eagle: Photo under zoom reveals a young eagle, centre, says TWS.
FORESTRY Tasmania has declared 400 hectares of the scenic Upper Florentine forests off-limits to the public as contractors move in to build a logging road into untouched oldgrowth forests.
The Wilderness Society today released a photo of Forestry Tasmania’s sign warning members of the public to keep out of the forests. The signs have been posted next to the Gordon River Road (the road to Lake Pedder and Strathgordon). Contractors and earth-moving machinery were this morning seen preparing to push a new logging road into the forests from the Gordon River Road.
This logging will destroy forests of World Heritage value. These ancient forests are part of Tasmania’s Southwest wilderness and almost entirely enclosed by the boundary of the World Heritage Area.
The exclusion zone borders the track to the visitor lookout constructed by the Wilderness Society and introduced to the public on Sunday.
The Upper Florentine is one of the forests the Prime Minister promised to protect in October 2004 but failed to do so in his agreement with the Lennon Government last May.
The area was identified by RFA experts in 1997 as having World Heritage values. It is a large tract of oldgrowth eucalypts and rainforest, riddled with caves and with sites of Aboriginal heritage.
Geoff Law,
The Wilderness Society
Government in denial: Here
Wilderness Society: The broken promise:
Broken_Promise_March06_complete.pdf
Map of the area:
What the Greens reckon:
MEDIA RELEASE
Tim Morris MHA
Friday, 31 March 2006failure to protect wedge-tailed eagles a disgrace
Forest Practices Authority Fails to Give Undertaking to Protect Upper Florentine HabitatThe Tasmanian Greens today said it was a deplorable situation that the Forest Practices Authority wouldn’t commit to an immediate halting of logging work in the Upper Florentine after the discovery of a family of wedged-tailed eagles.
Greens Member for Lyons, Tim Morris MHA, said the discovery of the distressed birds in coupe number FO 44A was yet another example of the inadequacy of the self regulated Forest Practices System.
‘’The fact that a family of threatened species wasn’t identified by the Forest Practices Officer, who was on the site at the time, but by a member of the public speaks volumes about the failures of the system,’’ Mr Morris said.
‘’I went to the Forest Practices Authority and lodged a personal complaint about the distressed eagles, outlining that logging should cease while the matter is investigated, but the representative I spoke to wouldn’t give me an undertaking that this would occur.’’
‘’It’s essential that the habitat for these eagles is protected and all works in the area cease while a Forest Practices Officer conducts a site assessment and locates the eagles’ nests before any irreparable habitat destruction occurs.’’
‘’If the FPA fail to act on this matter than the Government should intervene to insist that work ceases around the eagles home,’’ Mr Morris said.
