Yesterday Dr Bob Brown was arrested alongside activists Colette Harmsen and Ali Alishah in a logging coupe on the edge of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. All three were taken to Bridgewater Police Station.
As Tasmania’s early election approaches, Dr Brown said of the latest logging in the Styx Valley of the Giants, ‘This is official vandalism and disregard for global law. It is reckless Liberal government disregard for Tasmania’s natural beauty and international reputation.’
Colette Harmsen said, ‘Make sure you don’t vote for politicians who support this sort of senseless destruction. We must stop native forest logging immediately… It is time.’
Emblematic devastation
Ali Alishah said, ‘The devastation in this coupe, TN062G, is emblematic of how we deal with resource and policy matters in Tasmania.
‘These ecologically irreplaceable carbon-dense forests are being stolen from future generations by a short-sighted and loss-making manager, Forestry Tasmania, willingly enabled by the parties to the Tasmanian Forest Agreement.
‘This election, we have a chance to send a message to all political parties that we must rid ourselves of redundant management structures and do everything we can to restore and protect these forests in the interests of future generations’.
Colette Harmsen and Bob Brown were charged with trespass but released on bail to appear before the Court of Petty Sessions in Hobart at 9.30 am on 27 April.
Meanwhile the Rockliff government continues to authorise the logging of forest adjacent to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area in Tasmania’s famed Styx Valley of the Giants, near Maydena.
One witness said trees which are ‘bloody ginormous’ are being chainsawed down for woodchips.
Threat to world heritage
Bob Brown said this logging breaches the World Heritage Convention because the forest is itself of such value and because logging increases the threat of bushfire to the adjacent TWWHA.
He says the forest’s destruction is to make money for an out-of-state logging corporation Porta, which owns a mill in Bridgewater and processing plant in Victoria.
‘The Styx Valley of the Giants should be Tasmania’s next iconic tourist attraction but instead the government is subsidising its destruction,’ he said.
The ABC doesn’t appear to be covering Bob Brown nowadays.
Nothing at all from them on this.
Jimie, no need to be down, plenty of other media houses have covered Bob Brown’s arrest.
When will it ever stop?
I wonder what his sentence will be if any?. Too many green sympathiser judges today, they don’t live in the real world poor souls