Editor’s note: We received this communication in relation to current Forestry Tasmania (a.k.a. STT) operations near Quamby Bluff. Yesterday’s statement by the Wilderness Society Tasmania is useful background.
Personal communication – Tobias Linz, 4 April 2023
— untitled —
I’m writing to send an account of my experiences in the HU coupes.
I visited HU304Y, the patch of once-forest at the foot of Quamby Bluff, on 3 April. It had been torched by STT the day before and on approach I could see smoke rising from the ground. The hill was blanketed in ash and still littered with spot fires.
On previous visits the bush was dense and bustling, and you could even see the path by which timber would have been moved many decades ago.
As I climbed the hill, I found larger and larger stumps, recently cut, some hollow; it was clear by the final rise that logging practices had never before reached this high on this particular face of Quamby Bluff. Many with hollows were felled then left behind to burn, but even the napalm-like fuel dumped by STT couldn’t burn them down to nothing. They remain as evidence of these atrocities.
The only animals I saw were birds flitting at the borders. The centre was desolate; ash, fire, charred remains of plants. And all along the roadside for the first 100m were invasive plants, primed to fill the void.
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