Economy
Wisdom from Hector the Protector
Hector in action … pic by Tony Cross, Mercury (scan)
Pic by Brian O’Byrne
Hector started … and Miranda is finishing … the current record tree-sitter Miranda Gibson, watching over the forests … Miranda’s blog, here Alan Lesheim pic
Neil Smith now lives in the Huon district. In 1998 Neil was [b]Hector the Protector[/b] sitting in a tree in State Forest coupe at Mother Cummings Peak in the Western Tiers to be logged after the signing of the Regional Forest Agreement.
Leon Compton caught up with him in Huonville last Monday [26 November] : ‘I want to say hello to a man that is known to many of you whose name is Neil Smith… but you might know him as Hector the Protector. My understanding is that back before tree-sitting has taken its current iteration with Miranda Gibson; that he was a man sitting in a tree in order to make a point in protest. Neil, good morning.’
Neil Smith: ‘Good morning Leon, good to join you.’
Neon Compton: ‘So, give me the history lesson; when were you up a tree?’
Neil Smith: ‘I was up a tree in 1998; I think it was the first major protest after the RFA signed. We felt that particular deal had sold the conservationists out … up the river. And we were going to go back to the trenches so we made a big show at a place called Mother Cummings Peak in the North [of Tasmania]. I’ve definitely got a conservationist background and I still think largely that way. And I’ve got great respect for Jenny Weber [HVEC spokesperson] and I stood beside her a couple of times down in the Weld as well, and I worked on things, for instance, in the Styx as well. But….’
Leon Compton: ‘I thought there was a ‘but’. Tell me about the but Neil.’
Neil Smith: ‘The but is that I think I’m a bit more pragmatic than a lot of the … my other conservationist colleagues. [b]I feel that this deal is actually historic and momentous; that for the first time we’ve actually got industry signed up to the same document as we did.[/b] And we got over 500,000 ha of high conservation forests in a deal specified for protection and this encapsulates virtually all the forests we’ve been fighting for over the last 30 years. Now I know Jenny [Weber] will tell us there’s other stuff outside that – and I agree. And I agree that some of it is of equal value, but I do think that the time has come that we should compromise and I want to see this deal work.
If we let it fall over, the forests are going to continue to get bowled over all over the place including our high conservation forests; we’ll have absolutely no control over what happens in these forests that we all love.’
Neon Compton: ‘So you’re saying some of the compromises are worth it in terms of protecting parts of the landscape that are important to environmentalists and that are [i]important [/i]– full stop.’
Neil Smith: ‘I think so. I think we’ll all privately cry over some of the other forestry that goes on but I reckon the compromise is well worth it because most of our most sought-after areas are in the deal.
But, I feel it’s also very valuable to have a united community. I come from South Australia – I’ve been in Tassie nearly 20 years, but I came from South Australia – where the community wasn’t ripped apart by fights over anything much and people had jobs and small businesses; we had high tech businesses – we were a ‘can do’ sort of society and it wasn’t as though we were a financial, whiz-bang place like Melbourne or Sydney; we were the nearest thing economically to Tasmania there is. And yet we were a united society. [b]Now I want to see this deal happen in Tassie because I want [i]us[/i] to be a united society. I want us not to fight each other.’[/b]
Neon Compton: ‘Do you think a deal can get done? I mean look at what you heard from Jenny Weber and some other groups there… but then the more mainstream environment groups their position inside the tent on this. Look at industry and some of the people still opposed to it; the Legislative Council are clearly going to be difficult to get over the line on this. Do you think a deal can get done?’
Neil Smith: ‘I think it can get done. I think there’s a risk that it won’t, but I like people to sit back and have a bit of a think about this; what the alternatives are? Now the industry people… they talk about “Job, Jobs, Jobs” all the time – fair enough. [b]But if jobs were still that plentiful in the forestry industry the majority of the industry reps wouldn’t have gone into the deal; they wouldn’t have signed. So, it’s not greenies and protests that have caused the jobs to be lost in most cases. It’s just that, for all their ancestral beliefs and all that; this is not a future industry on a scale that it has been. It’s going to have to be smaller. And it’s going to have to operate outside the areas the conservationists like most.[/b]
[b]I hope the Legislative Councillors are big enough to aim to improve Tasmania’s society by letting this deal go through and they will see in a few short months or years how much better the place actually is.’[/b]
Leon Compton: ‘Neil… great to meet you.’
[Reference: State-wide Mornings ABC local radio – 26 November 2012 with Leon Compton]