North Weld Wilderness: too precious to plunder

Will Mooney

Beneath the rugged rocky crown of Southern Tasmania’s World Heritage Snowy Range, a hidden tract of wilderness is in the firing line. The North Weld: a remote stand of towering old growth eucalypts and pure, ancient rainforest. For millennia this steep, wild forested landscape has evolved free from the destructive impact of modern industrial society… but its time is running out.

Picture: Geoffrey Lea

Forestry Tasmania has been seeking a route into this inaccessible back-country, where there are no roads, tracks or even markers to follow. The indigenous Tasmanians , of course, knew the area well and almost certainly sheltered in rock overhangs or travelled through this forest en-route to better hunting grounds. But where they trod gently, the woodchip blitzkrieg with its army of bulldozers will wreak havoc.

Having abandoned various approaches to the area, our state-funded foresters, will dispose of vast sums of taxpayer’s money to extend the current “North Weld Road” through diverse and sensitive rainforest to the Weld River. Here they plan to build a bridge and open up the North Weld wilderness to industrial exploitation for the first time in human history.

Their first gesture in this untamed place will be to strip twenty hectares of steep, pristine forest with a cable logger.

It is surely worth pondering why, in this age – at this crucial juncture in human evolution – we consider it good, wise or just to dissect and despoil such an ancient and precious place. The North Weld contains one of the largest stands of unprotected rainforest in Southern Tasmania. It provides habitat for an array of threatened species. It stores vast amounts of carbon in a complex network of trees, roots and soil. It filters our water and cleans our air. It is part of the magic and mystery of our island home. Don’t future generations have a right to witness and enjoy this place as we have done? What right do we have to take that away?

Of course the men in charge have a tool-box of spin to “manage” these concerns. The North Weld, they claim, will be used for leatherwood honey and special species timbers. Yet the daily reality of logging in Tasmania’s southern forest is a testament to this lie. Across the valleys of the Weld, Arve, Florentine and Styx, the bare bones of bulldozed leatherwood stands and the precious piles of special species timbers, scattered through clearfells waiting to be burnt, tell another story.

The Tasmanian Government don’t build roads and bridges for beekeepers and craftspeople. They bulldoze their way through wilderness to capture and ensnare it, to carve it up as food for a woodchip hungry monster whose name cannot be spoken. The fate of these forests is a far cry from the feel-good platitudes and self-congratulatory narratives peddled in annual reports, “management plans” and greenwashing conferences. The broken remains of once-spectacular forest ecosystems end up as discarded wastepaper in the bins of Japanese offices. A tree that has grown for centuries, accumulating soil and carbon and housing an untold plethora of living creatures is reduced to a forgotten fragment of tissue in someone’s pocket. Hardly good, wise or just.

For these reasons, unkempt and unmanageable as they may seem, Tasmanians are prepared to climb these ancient trees and sit in them in a belated attempt to save them. They are prepared to lock themselves into the ground, onto machines and gates to slow the rapid loss of something that makes our place in the world so unique. They are prepared to go to court, face fines, costs and even prison to make their stand. In the Weld Valley, in the Florentine, Styx and southern forests, activists have said that they would rather bare the consequences of caring than remain silent.

But there is hope for the future of this place and all it represents.

This week activists from the Huon Valley Environment Centre established a “Weld Heritage Rescue Station” to hold back the bulldozers and highlight the plight of Tassie’s Southern Forests. With persistent actions, activists have drawn National and Global attention.

The World Heritage Committee, a congress of some 21 nations from around the globe has expressed its agreement with the activists. At its most recent meeting in Christchurch, New Zealand, the Committee noted that Forestry Tasmania’s plans for the North Weld will compromise future options for the extension of the Tasmanian World Heritage Area. New roads and logging will damage the values and integrity of the World Heritage Area. The Committee has asked the Australian Government to distance logging operations from the World Heritage boundary.

Peter Garrett and his ALP colleagues now have a chance to stand up where so many others have stood back.

Today the North Weld and its surrounds are safe. But, any day, the bulldozers could roll in. Activists need your support. Visit www.huon.org and www.coolforests.org to keep informed, make donations or express your support.