Michael Hirst below the Observer Tree
Michael and a friend, together with some of Miranda’s ground crew. Michael was looking upwards towards Miranda’s platform, one last time, before walking out, down the hill through the bush. Everyone had just farewelled him and shaken hands.
There had been some criticism expressed on TT about Michael Hirst’s pro-forestry protest at the base of Miranda Gibson’s Observer Tree. I went down today (Saturday) to see how things were going.
Well, it’s just got dark, down here at the Observer Tree.
Michael Hirst went about an hour ago. Miranda’s ground crew and Michael got on very well and had some interesting chats.
Michael’s now gone back north.
His camp is just 10 or 15 metres away, just on the lower side of the tree. I came down to see what the atmosphere was like and I’ve been very pleasantly surprised. He was replaced by a couple from Deloraine, and before it got dark, they came up to pay a social call. They had a cup of tea with us and then went back down to get organised before it got dark.
A possum is running across the tarpaulin of our shelter at the bottom of Miranda’s tree. She’s been pretty busy. She had a group of young people from the Australian Youth Climate Coalition call in – some of them went up to her platform.
They’ve been down in Tassie, visiting schools around the state. Some of them are from Brisbane and that probably explains why they were wearing gloves. We were sitting round in thongs and shorts (joke).
But honestly everyone, we have had very good chats with Michael. He was certainly not here to confront us and we’ve all actually enjoyed the interchange.
The same goes for our ‘new neighbours’, a chap coincidentally also called Michael, and his wife Cindy. It is a very quiet peaceful evening. Though the possums are hungry. There’s one sitting on my foot cleaning out the frypan leftovers from one of the ground crew’s meal.
We are hoping that there will be a good IGA outcome. We want our native forests protected, particularly the designated HCV coupes such as the Observer Tree is in.
Signing off,
Gary Stannus
