Veteran forest defender Susie Russell will appear in Forster Magistrates Court today on charges related to an anti-logging protest earlier this year.
Ms Russell, a member of the North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) was arrested at the January 9 protest at Bulga Forest, west of Port Macquarie.
NEFA says that Bulga State Forest is home to a nationally significant breeding population of the endangered Greater Glider. And the area is also being used by mother Koalas with joeys.
Logging has reportedly now been postponed until May because the Forestry Corporation have still not met their legal obligations to identify the den trees of Greater Gliders and other threatened species, suggesting that it should never have commenced.
On January 9, Ms Russell was arrested after she walking around a corner to check on the well-being of a young woman on a tripod who was stopping the logging, and then walked back again.
The veteran campaigner asserts that she wasn’t arrested because she interfered with the logging, rather for being a vocal critic of native forest logging and the Forestry Corporation.
NEFA says that a court of appeal has already ruled that the police did not have sufficient evidence to meet the elements of the offence Ms Russell was being charged with.
However, the police are continuing to pursue the matter at the local court level.
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