Styx Valley forest protest renews call for climate action in Tasmania

With Tasmanians set to go to the polls on 23 March, the Bob Brown Foundation has called for the next Tasmanian government to take real climate action by protecting all native forests that are left standing and restoring degraded forests.

‘Tasmania’s native forests, wildlife and economy has suffered from 75 years of mass-clearing and burning practices that must be consigned to history,’ said Jenny Weber, Bob Brown Foundation’s Campaigns Manager.

‘In 2024, a new Tasmanian government must take climate action and a solution is in front of us. It is ending native forest logging, providing secure protection to our globally significant forest ecosystems and finally ceasing the mass destruction of endangered wildlife habitat,’ she said.

This morning, Ali Alishah, who was once jailed for protesting in defence of Tasmania’s forests, has attached himself to a gate that locks up public forests to allow for logging in the Styx Valley.

‘Over the last 48 hours, out here in the Styx valley, we have borne witness as Forestry Tasmania has laid waste to Tasmania’s sacred forests,’ said Mr Alishah.

‘For me, it is a tragic reminder of the perverse legacy of the failed 2013 Tasmanian Forest Agreement. It condemned ecologically irreplaceable carbon-dense forests, such as those of coupe TN062G, to destruction, while rewarding the loss-making Forestry Tasmania’s recklessness, negligence, and contempt for its primary shareholders – the Tasmanian people.

‘It is now beyond time that both redundant structures, Forestry Tasmania and the Tasmania Forest Agreement, were abolished, and Tasmania’s native forest estate restored and protected in the interests of the people, and generations to come,’ he said.

‘Each day there is another logging coupe started, like this one in the Styx Valley, we are witnessing native forests razed in a time they are urgently required to fight climate breakdown and wildlife extinctions,’ said Jenny Weber.

‘Until Tasmania has a government that ends native forest logging we are failing to secure a safe and resilient community, environment and economy.’