Another attack on free speech

Adam Burling

For a government agency to take on a case that potentially could have run into the tens of thousands of dollars against a small community organization and a number of conservationists, is surely stepping outside the role of a “manager” of the public’s forests. Taking politically motivated legal action against Tasmanians is abhorrent. Its success would have contributed to the silencing of non-violent dissent against the increasingly unpopular Tasmanian forest industry.

An unprecedented attack on free speech and democracy in Australia was launched in February 2007 by Tasmania’s logging agency, Forestry Tasmania.

This state-owned entity attempted to use an underhanded tactic of serving legal injunctions on several individuals to silence legitimate criticism and non-violent protests towards its operations in the ancient forests of the Weld Valley. Perhaps the new Forestry boss had taken lessons from Gunns Ltd and its multi-million dollar lawsuit against 20 conservationists.

One group is common to both writs. It is the Huon Valley Environment Centre and its campaign to defend Tasmania’s native forests.

The injunction was also served at the end of a week wherein accelerated destruction of old growth forest had commenced in the Lower Weld Valley. Wilderness forests of the Weld Valley is one of many threatened valleys, in the great Southern Forests which run along the edge of the eastern boundary of Tasmania’s World Heritage listed South West national park. The wild Weld river flows through a landscape that has not changed much since the original Tasmanians sheltered in its ice age caves and feasted on the mega fauna that once lived here.

Some 20% of the Weld Valley is threatened by logging, mainly for woodchips destined for paper and cardboard products in Japan. The rest is protected in a national park. The lower Weld Valley has been recognized as having World Heritage quality, by local groups such as the Tasmanian government’s own Parks and Wildlife Service and international bodies including the IUCN. It is the unique beauty and wildness of this valley that drives so many brave people to defend it awe inspiring forests.

The Huon Valley Environment Centre is a small community group based in the town of Huonville in Southern Tasmania. The Centre has been running a campaign to defend the ancient forests of the Huon region, and in particular the Weld Valley, for the past five years. It is through this work of lobbying, community education and non-violent protests that this centre has come to the attention of the logging industry and the state Labor government.

On Nov 15th 2006 a year long blockade at Camp Weld, whose centrepiece was a life size sculpture of a pirate ship, was smashed by 60 police. This heralded a new assault on the Weld Valley. For the following weeks over 25 people were arrested. The non-violent direct action continued while a road was driven into the wilderness. As the new logging onslaught has begun in February the protests continued as another 4 forest defenders were arrested. These heroes faced threats of violence and sexual assault by logging contractors and whose safety was continually compromised while Forestry Tasmania employees looked on.

Just after 8am on Friday 16th February, a private investigator delivered a new attack on forest defenders in the hills of the Huon Valley. I it was an injunction and writ aimed to halt the Weld Valley campaign. Forestry Tasmania had proceeded with legal action in the Supreme Court of Tasmania against a community organization, some of its committee members and an internet activist. The aim was twofold, to force the Centre to halt a planned walk-in on the coming Sunday and then to completely halt all support for any type of non-violent protests in the Weld Valley.

The writ targeted the Centre in part because of the ‘Walk in’ it had advertised. This was the fourth such event in the past couple of months, allowing the wider community to bear witness to destruction of the Weld Valley ancient forests. These events were textbook non-violent protests. A diverse range of people would defy the archaic laws that prevent them from entering their own forests and walk in solidarity with other forest defenders who had kept the loggers at bay for the last two years.

In court it was said that the term “Walk-in’ was actually a technical term in Forestry talk and apparently meant not only walking but also was ‘likely to involve … locking onto machinery or trees, conducting tree-sits, or otherwise interfering with the conduct of forest operations’. There was some mirth in the court as Forestry’s lawyers tried to explain that this subversive term was concealing the real conspiracy of harming their government corporation. The bright, dedicated and representative collection of people who participated in these marches was demonized as people who were somehow hell bent on the economic downfall of the whole timber industry.

Forestry Tasmania were to seek an injunction restraining the Centre, its ‘officers, servants, agents or members from organizing, promoting, advertising or providing material support to activities involving the entry by persons into the area of State forest at the Weld Valley.’ The definition of material support was extended to include:

* use or provision of equipment
* the provision of food or drinks
* the provision of medical supplies
* the use or provision of motor vehicles
* the provision of assistance
* the use of land or premises
* the use of photocopying, facsimile, email, mail and internet facilities
* the use or provision of any property including signs, flags banners

Forestry also demanded that all SMS, email and files associated with the Weld Campaign be delivered to them within 7 days. That potentially meant all the mobile phones, computers (work and personal) and the complete hard copy filing system.

In court Forestry Tasmania argued that these peaceful protestors were a serious enough threat to their activities that exclusions zone laws, general police powers over trespass and obstruction, as well as the ability to deputise any Forestry officer to arrest people, were not considered enough. Eight people had earlier that day attended magistrate’s court on a variety of criminal charges leveled at them for non-violently defending the Weld Valley ancient forests from the chainsaws and bulldozers. They all left with good behaviour bonds and no convictions.

Later the same day at the Supreme Court, the only real evidence presented by Forestry Tasmania was volumes of website material taken from the Centre’s website, Tasmedia.org news site, Engagemedia.org film site and an independent blog called Save the Weld. It was presented on badly saved CD which had a raft of internet pages download onto it. The now regular giggles at Forestry’s expense continued as part of the material included in the evidence was read out from the blog, it talked about a “wkd sunrise and noisy penguins in bicheno, had a pretty effin frustrating middle dealing with a bungling judiciary in Hobart”. It seemed as though Forestry were collecting anything at all on the web associated with the Weld Valley, in a Big Brother style sweep.

Forestry Tasmania were trying to stop anything even remotely associated with the campaign to bring attention to the Weld Valley, and the Centre in particular from exercising their democratic right to protest against the onslaught of forest destruction which was launched onto the Weld forests. Breaking the law here was irrelevant, surely as part of a modern democratic society, breaking seemingly unjust laws is an acceptable part of community dialogue on social issues such as the logging of old growth trees. If the legal action was successful, activists faced contempt of court proceedings (which can include gaol) if they enter the Weld Valley or even provided so much as a band-aid to those who walked into these supposedly public forests.

The exclusion zones protect the State Labor Government and hide the devastation from being shown to the public, they prohibit media, the local community and in one case even helicopters above the area from seeing what is going on. Forestry claims that exclusion zones are in place for safety reasons, but with over 30km buffer it is more about keeping the logging safe from scrutiny than anything else.

For a government agency to take on a case that potentially could have run into the tens of thousands of dollars against a small community organization and a number of conservationists, is surely stepping outside the role of a “manager” of the public’s forests. Taking politically motivated legal action against Tasmanians is abhorrent. Its success would have contributed to the silencing of non-violent dissent against the increasingly unpopular Tasmanian forest industry.

The case was withdrawn by Forestry Tasmania during the hearing, after evidence was found to be inadmissible. Activists waited another week to hear if Forestry Tasmania was going to persue the injunction. Thankfully it did not. Forestry Tasmania was ordered to pay costs of around $7000 as well as their own. At taxpayers expense this was a futile attempt to put the clamps on forest defenders.

Adam Burling. March, 2007

Adam Burling is the Convenor of the Huon Valley Environment Centre, a part time advisor to Senator Bob Brown and a Gunns 20 defendant.