Tasmania Police raid Florentine blockade

Christo Mills Still Wild, Still Threatened
“We are calling on Peter Garrett and David Bartlett to heed the advice of the World Heritage Committee and put an immediate halt to destructive roading and logging operations in the Upper Florentine Valley. The logging, burning and woodchipping of these irreplaceable carbon dense forests is an international disgrace” said Still Wild Still Threatened spokesperson and Triabunna 13 defendant Christo Mills.
MEDIA RELEASE
Monday, 12th January 2009
UPPER FLORENTINE FOREST BLOCKADE RAIDED BY TASMANIA POLICE

Aerial view of Camp Florentine and logging coupe FO044A. Photo: Rob Blakers.

Early this morning, police stormed a peaceful community blockade in the Upper Florentine Valley. Camp Florentine, located in logging coupe FO044A, has been defending the globally recognised old growth forests of the Upper Florentine for over two years. Activists are outraged at the raid, which may allow Forestry Tasmania to build 4km of new logging roads, opening up the valley to large scale logging operations.

“We are calling on Peter Garrett and David Bartlett to heed the advice of the World Heritage Committee and put an immediate halt to destructive roading and logging operations in the Upper Florentine Valley. The logging, burning and woodchipping of these irreplaceable carbon dense forests is an international disgrace” said Still Wild Still Threatened spokesperson and Triabunna 13 defendant Christo Mills.

“The pristine forests of the Upper Florentine Valley are a national treasure. It is an act of daylight madness for Minister Garrett and Premier Bartlett to continue supporting the devastation of such globally significant forests” said Mr Mills. In July last year, the World Heritage Committee released an important decision that requested an extension of the
Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area to “include appropriate areas of tall eucalypt forest” such as the Upper Florentine. Furthermore, the IUCN requested that a moratorium on logging in areas of potential outstanding universal value, including old growth forests located in the Styx and Upper Florentine Valley, should be considered.

“The Tasmanian and Australian Governments must be held accountable for the continued destruction of Tasmania’s pristine old growth and high conservation value forests . Over 84% of the timber harvested from these globally renowned ecosystems will be woodchipped and exported by local climate criminals Gunns Limited”1 said Ula Majewski, Still Wild
Still Threatened spokesperson and Triabunna 13 defendant.

“It is high time for the Tasmanian and Australian governments to stop pandering to the nefarious interests of greedy woodchipping barons Gunns Limited and immediately start legislating to protect Tasmania’s outstanding old growth and high conservation value forests” concluded Miss Majewski.

Activists in the Upper Florentine Valley will continue to stand up and speak out against the continued destruction of Tasmania’s old growth and high conservation value forests.

1
TWS and SWST (2008) Oldgrowth for export: a report documenting the logging and woodchipping of Tasmania’s oldgrowth forests. Hobart, Tasmania.
Downloadable pdf available from www.et.org.au/node/41

Download map: Map_of_the_Upper_Florentine_Valley.pdf

Vica Bayley

MEDIA RELEASE – Monday, 12th January 2009

POLICE RAID PAVES WAY FOR ROADING AND LOGGING OF
WORLD-HERITAGE-VALUE FORESTS

Bartlett and Rudd governments condemned for allowing contentious logging to proceed

Today’s police break-up of a protest camp in the Upper Florentine signals a new assault on the area’s world-heritage-value oldgrowth forests in defiance of calls by the World Heritage Committee for their full protection.

The Wilderness Society today condemned the new logging operation, calling it a deliberately provocative move into highly contentious forest which demonstrates a failure of policy by both the Rudd and Bartlett governments that will do nothing to resolve the forest debate in Tasmania or heal the long-standing community rift over logging issues.

“In July last year the World Heritage Committee passed a resolution calling for the protection of globally significant forests such as those in the Upper Florentine, Styx and Weld Valleys, yet our governments bulldoze on with unpopular and environmentally destructive logging operations,” said Vica Bayley, spokesperson for The Wilderness Society.

“The Upper Florentine is an area almost entirely surrounded by the World Heritage Area and contains untouched forests of well documented World Heritage value that should be protected,” said Mr Bayley.

“These forests and the values they contain are planned for woodchipping and burning in clearfelling operations that will destroy a globally significant asset and outrage many in the community.”

Over the next three years 10.8 kilometres of new roads are to be pushed into the pristine forests of the Upper Florentine to access six oldgrowth coupes totalling 169 hectares, all scheduled for modified clearfelling and burning. Over 84% of wood extracted from Tasmanian oldgrowth forests ends up as export woodchips.

“This move highlights the fundamental failure in government forest policy and will be condemned by people all over the world who know protecting forests such as those in the Upper Florentine is one the most important policy responses to climate change,’ said Mr Bayley.

“The Wilderness Society shares the concerns of protestors and their desire to see these forests protected and it calls on Prime Minister Rudd and Premier Bartlett to halt this logging operation and bring all stakeholders together to work out a resolution,” concluded Mr Bayley.

Phill Pullinger

MEDIA RELEASE – 12/1/2009

Florentine logging will cost jobs

Tasmania’s peak environment body has condemned moves by Forestry Tasmania to push wood-chipping into Old-growth forests in the Florentine valley in Tasmania today, and offered support to protestors, pointing out that old-growth forests in Tasmania are some of the state’s most important environmental and economic assets. The roading and logging plan comes as 30 police moved into a protest camp this morning to arrest peaceful forest protestors and open up the region to logging equipment. The conservation group Still Wild, Still threatened has maintained a peaceful vigil at the Florentine valley for over 2 years.

“The Florentine valley is an Old-growth forest of recognised World Heritage significance – an extraordinary place of great value to Tasmania – not just from a conservation perspective but also from an economic perspective,” said Dr Phill Pullinger, Director of Environment Tasmania.

“Tasmania’s tourism industry employs more than double the number in the entire forest industry sector and that employment is highly dependent on protection and sound management of our world class natural assets and wilderness areas,” continued Dr Pullinger, “Tasmania’s old-growth forests are one of our most important natural assets and are worth much more to our economy and to future jobs growth kept standing upright than sent to South-East Asia as woodchips to be turned into toilet paper and disposable packaging and paper products,”

“We’ve got to think about the long-term health of our economy and every short-term job that we sustain in carting old-growth forests to the woodchip mill will cost us many more jobs in sustainable tourism opportunities. The conflict over Old-growth logging in Tassie desperately needs to be solved, it’s bad for our state morale, bad for economic growth and investment and bad for our environment.”

“We urge the Tasmanian government to direct taxpayer resources at the protection of our natural assets, solving the forest conflict and delivering innovation and new opportunities in our tourism and timber sectors rather than wasting precious resources in subsidies to wood-chipping companies and arresting protestors who are reflecting and acting on behalf of public opinion,” he concluded.

Environment Tasmania is Tasmania’s conservation council, an umbrella body that represents 25 Tasmanian conservation groups, with collective representation of over 6000 Tasmanians.

Kim Booth

FORESTRY TASMANIA PRIORITISING LOGGING OF CONTENTIOUS FORESTS
In Blatant Move to Destroy Conservation Values
Kim Booth MP
Acting Greens Leader
Monday, 12 January 2009

www.tas.greens.org.au
The Tasmanian Greens today called on Forestry Tasmania to clarify whether it is prioritising logging operations in old-growth and high conservation value forests following a Tasmania Police raid on a protestor’s camp in the contentious Florentine Valley.

Acting Greens Leader Kim Booth MP said today’s decision to remove resistance to logging in the Florentine should be seen as nothing more than a precursor to FT’s strategic vandalism of high conservation value forests in the area, at a time when the woodchip industry is experiencing serious reductions in volume and while Tasmanian ports are drowning under enormous woodchip stockpiles.

Mr Booth also thanked the protestors in the Florentine Valley for their work in defending forests that the Prime Minister promised to protect from clearfelling in 2006, only to renege on that commitment after winning the 2006 election.

“The Greens have been reliably informed that FT staff across the state have been instructed to identify old growth and high conservation value forests in their district for strategic logging operations that are clearly designed to destroy the conservation values of these contentious areas of forest,” said Mr Booth.

“Why are FT moving to prioritise the logging of contentious high conservation forests while the industry is experiencing a severe downturn and while woodchip stockpiles are growing at all three Tasmanian woodchip export ports?”

“Former Prime Minister John Howard committed to preserve the Florentine forests prior to the 2006 federal election, but after Howard won that election he and former Premier Paul Lennon announced an ‘agreement’ that reneged on the commitment to the Florentine, leaving the community with no option but to blockade the forests in question.”

“Tasmania’s high conservation value forests are irreplaceable assets that will be worth far more to Tasmanians if left standing as carbon stores than as woodchips for Gunns Ltd, so why are FT prioritising their logging at this particular time?,” said Mr Booth.