from Sunday Herald, 25 January 2009
Trees from one of the world’s most ancient and precious forests are being felled for timber after a two-year protest camp was broken up by police.
Huge eucalyptus logs were last week trucked out of Upper Florentine Valley in Tasmania, Australia, under a police escort. The forest has long been the focus of an intense and bitter battle between environmentalists and loggers.
More than 30 people have been arrested in an argument that pitches the needs of the planet and local wildlife against the economic benefits of the timber industry. And though the logging has begun, the protests continue.
Upper Florentine, an old growth temperate rainforest, contains some of the world’s tallest trees. Last year the United Nations’ World Heritage Committee called for it to be protected.
But the government agency, Forestry Tasmania, has persisted with plans to bulldoze a four-kilometre road through the trees and log 50 hectares of forest. The only thing that has been standing in its way has been a determined protest camp.
Early in the morning on 12 January police stormed the camp and evicted the protesters from their array of huts and makeshift shelters. Five were also in perches high up trees, three were chained to old cars cemented into the ground and one was down a tunnel.
Among the protesters was 21-year-old Rosie Wordsworth, who grew up in Glenurquhart in the Scottish Highlands but has lived in Australia for the last two years. “The destruction had begun,” she told the Sunday Herald last week.
“We were watching our camp being crushed, knowing the worst was yet to come, and that the old, giant trees we were trying to protect might only have days to live.”
Despite further mass protests, the first sawn logs were driven out of the forest on Wednesday. “It’s been a pretty emotional time for us all,” said Wordsworth.
“I just want the government to wake up and stop this barbaric and old fashioned practice. Climate change is affecting us all and we need to look to the future and realise the importance of these massive carbon sinks.”
Over the last two years the camp had suffered a series of attacks from local loggers, she alleged. They included the firebombing of two vehicles and a hut, slashed tyres, smashed windscreens, sledgehammer attacks, threats of physical violence and rape, and numerous assaults.
Nevertheless, Wordsworth felt privileged to have spent so much time in such a spectacular place. “It’s like nothing I've ever seen in Scotland,” she said. “I can only imagine what our beautiful country looked like hundreds of years ago, before we lost most of our native forests.”
According to the protesters, more than three-quarters of the trees will be turned into wood chips. “The logging, burning and woodchipping of these irreplaceable carbon-dense forests is an international disgrace,” said Christo Mills from the campaign group, Still Wild Still Threatened.
Forestry Tasmania, however, pointed out that the logging would produce $2 million worth of timber and help sustain 6,000 forestry jobs. Only 10% of the Upper Florentine forest was available for logging, it said, with much the remaining 90% under protection.
The agency’s manager, Steve Whiteley, was excited that logs had at last been removed from the forest. “It’s a really important milestone that the road’s being used in this way and the contractors involved have done very well to get to this point,” he said.
“We're very happy with progress on the road to date and it's great to see the road being used for employment in the valley.”
Some forest workers had been “ambushed” by protesters, Whiteley complained. “We've had a number of people quite distressed by the damage that they could have caused to someone.”
Cutting down centauries old eucalyptus trees for woodchips? It’s almost beyond belief! So much for sustainability as far as the Australian woodchip industry is concerned...
Posted by: Fr. Peter | 26 January 2009 at 09:06 AM
Maybe the best we can hope for is that the market for these products collapses.
Posted by: Sandra | 25 January 2009 at 04:00 PM