Eight women from around northern NSW have attached themselves to the entrance and rooftop of the Forestry Corporation’s office in Park Avenue, Coffs Harbour.
Using devices including pipe arm locks, they have occupied the building and deployed banners reading ‘End Native Forest Logging Now!’ and ‘We destroy it. You pay for it’ next to the Forestry Corp logo.
The women say the corporation is a criminal entity, found guilty of multiple crimes and costing taxpayers many millions in fines and legal fees. For example, they recently spent more than $1 million when they lost a case against conservation groups over breaches of logging rules.
The forest protectors include Knitting Nanna Sharon Hodge, 65, filmmaker Juliet Lamont, 54, and registered nurse Daisy Nutty, 51.
On the brink
Juliet Lamont said, ‘We are on the brink of a climate catastrophe. We have all experienced it with recent floods and cyclones edging further south. We need to secure a sustainable future for our children. Our governments are showing no visionary leadership so ordinary citizens are being forced to show the way forward.
‘No one wants to climb on to roofs and face arrest but good people historically can protest bad laws. And force their hand. It is our moral duty to save what is left of our precious native forests,’ she said.
‘We can do this. A better world is possible.’
Daisy Nutty said, ‘Forestry Corporation runs at a loss, so the community purse is paying them to push endangered wildlife like koalas and greater gliders to extinction.’
Who are the rule breakers?
The protesters claim Forestry Corporation routinely breaks the rules, felling habitat trees, fudging harvest numbers, damaging old-growth rainforest, polluting streams and creeks and pushing threatened species to the brink, all funded by NSW taxpayers.
It was recently exposed that they spent five years looking for nocturnal threatened animals during the day, meaning they didn’t find any and so did not have to protect any forest.
The women allege Forestry Corporation are responsible for the destruction of natural heritage throughout the state, already threatened by climate change. They say irreplaceable forests are being degraded and their biodiversity diminished.
The women say they are occupying the building because Forestry Corporation is a rogue and unaccountable government agency and should be shut down.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
