Tasmanian forests nominated for inclusion in the World Heritage Program are being quietly and quickly logged. Two and a half weeks ago, important forest wildernesses covering some 170,000 hectares and including Butler’s Gorge and the Florentine, Weld, and Styx valleys, were nominated to be added to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. They would be given protection after decades of protests. Forest advocates believed the logging would immediately stop but this has not been the case. Tasmanian environment groups Still Wild Still Threatened, Huon Valley Environment Centre and national group Markets For Change revealed video footage and on-the-ground recon earlier this week.
Miranda Gibson, who has been occupying the threatened Observer Tree for over 400 days thought she would be coming down from her tree-sit to celebrate the nomination.
Still in her tree, she says, “When Minister Burke announced that the World Heritage nomination had gone to Paris I was overjoyed. Yet what he failed to announce was that the logging of these forests of global significance would continue. This is unacceptable and I am now compelled to remain in my tree sit until these forests are actually safe, as they should have been as soon as their values were put forward to the World Heritage Committee”.
Miranda Gibson said, “In Butlers Gorge nearby the Observer Tree the tall forests are recognised to be absolutely outstanding wilderness and very significant tracts of the tallest flowering plants on the planet, yet this is where logging is ripping the place apart with three separate industrial scale operations.”
An online action will today be launched from the Observer Tree through social media, where people can write to Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Environment Minister Tony Burke, asking for urgent action to halt the logging of the nominated World Heritage Value forests. Also a group of conservationists held a banner out the front of Canberra’s Parliament House this morning calling on Gillard and Burke, “You nominated the forests now stop the logging”.
“The Australian government is abrogating its responsibility to protect the very World Heritage values they have nominated and many conservationists will be shocked that this could happen and angry that they have been kept in the dark about the continued logging. We are calling on the Federal Government to prevent any new logging from commencing and ensure that any current logging cease, so as to maintain the integrity and values of the World Heritage nominated forests.” said Jenny Weber of Huon Valley Environment Centre.
Help get these greedy hands off protected forests! Join the media campaign started from The Observer Tree and send a message to the Australian politicians that can put an end to this. Remember, it doesn’t matter which border lines you legally belong to. Nature does not adhere to nation-states and neither do World Heritage Sites.
See Miranda’s blog, The Observer Tree, for more info.
