Anti-logging protest in Upper Florentine Valley attracts big turnout
HUNDREDS of people gathered yesterday to rally against an attempt to reopen some World Heritage listed forests to logging.
Tasmania
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HUNDREDS of people gathered in Tasmania’s Upper Florentine Valley yesterday to rally against the Federal Government’s attempt to reopen some World Heritage-listed forests to logging.
Organisers described the gathering as historic, saying the turnout surpassed the mass community rallies of the past, when the region was the scene of a bitter war between activists and loggers.
Environmentalists have vowed to fight to maintain the forests’ hard-won UNESCO World Heritage status, which was finally achieved last year.
But the Federal Government argues it has an electoral mandate to open the reserves to loggers.
The rally highlighted the fact that Australia’s environmental movement is now dominated by women, in contrast to the Franklin Dam campaign of the 1970s and 1980s.
Speakers at yesterday’s rally were Australian Greens leader Christine Milne, activist Miranda Gibson, television star Lisa Gormley and Markets for Change chief executive Peg Putt.
Organiser Jenny Weber, from the Bob Brown Foundation, said the all-female line-up should be celebrated.
“We had some very powerful women there and it’s good for young women to have people they can look up to,” Ms Weber said.
Home and Away star Lisa Gormley, a former Tasmanian, said she was overcome with emotion to see so many people wanting to protect Tasmania’s renowned wilderness.
“To see hundreds of people who care as much as I do blew me away,” Ms Gormley said.
Tasmanian Liberal senator Richard Colbeck dismissed claims the rally was a sign of growing community unrest about the Government’s attempt to excise 74,000ha of forest from Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area.
“We won’t be changing our mind, it was a commitment that we took to the last election,” Senator Colbeck said.
He said the forests had already been degraded by logging and did not deserve World Heritage status.
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