Media Release
21/01/08

Tasmania's Weld Valley Re-opening a Win for Conservationists:
Logging Devastation still imminent

Forestry Tasmania's announcement today they are re-opening the Weld Valley in Southern Tasmania is a win for conservationists. Conservationists have been pressuring Forestry Tasmania to allow public access to the Weld Valley for the past eighteen months. Huon Valley Environment Centre welcomes the opportunity for public scrutiny of Forestry Tasmania's destruction of the threatened Weld Valley wilderness areas," Huon Valley Environment Centre's Jenny Weber said.

"The public and media have been excluded from the Weld Valley for close to eighteen months. It is worrying that Forestry Tasmania are threatening to exclude public access again if we engage in democratic right to protest. Despite their admissions that the development of a new logging bridge is imminent in to the Weld Valley's largest threatened wilderness area, the north weld," Jenny Weber said.

"Conservationists have been lobbying for the tourism values of the Weld Valley to be recognised for many years, though it is Forestry Tasmania that continues to decimate large areas of ancient forests. We believe that clearfelling large areas of forest and tourism is not compatible, do people want to visit ancient rainforest and clearfells?" Jenny Weber said.

Contact Jenny Weber
0427 366 929
jweber@nativeforest.net
Huon Valley Environment Centre