Gunns20

The five year long legal battle with Tasmanian logging giant, Gunns Ltd, officially ended on Monday Feb 1st. Only one day before the case was going to trial. In 2004 the Gunns20 case started with 20 defendants being sued for a total of $6.4 million. On Monday, the law suit was dropped and the remaining 4 defendants were paid $155,000 in costs. Gunns had spent $4 million dollars pursuing environmentalists and now had completely backed down. We had won, the elation we felt was incredible. The wider ten year campaign to protect our small community of Lucaston had ended, and we had finally beaten this billion dollar logging company who had planned to wipe out close to 1000 acres of forest near our homes and turn it into a pulp wood plantation.

Over the last few years, I personally had accepted the very real risk that this case could bankrupt me and I could loose my family home. If Gunns had won, I would have been up for a share in the millions of dollars in costs. Despite this I continued because I felt that my personal assets were worth less than the right to free speech and protection of Tasmania’s native forests.

On Tuesday 2nd Feb, the day the trial was supposed to start, I met with Lawyers who had assisted us and other former defendants outside the Victorian Supreme Court. It was a very different mood to previous occasions. Instead of pressure mounting to self-represent, it was a victorous celebration. For us, the story now has a happy ending. For the forests and other environmentalists the story is not over, Gunns Ltd still logs Tasmanian wilderness forests and is suing 13 others in a separate case, the Gunns 13, so the fight continues.

Adam Burling