23.03.2010 Logging road halted in call for forests solution

Conservationists have today entered forest in Southern Tasmania that is being logged. Today’s action is being made to highlight the construction of a large new logging road adjacent to the Hartz Mountains National Park. Conservationists are calling for a solution to the forest crisis facing Tasmania.

Twenty Tasmanian forest campaigners have established a tripod, to call attention to the logging for a new road that will allow access to decimate thousands of hectares of untouched forest contiguous with the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. These forests were in 1976 removed from Hartz Mountains National Park.

"Tasmania is facing a forest crisis, with precious high conservation value forests threatened by new logging roads and timber industry jobs disappearing as Gunns collapses. There is an urgent need to save forests and protect jobs by implementing a real solution to this crisis," said Huon Valley Environment Centre’s Jenny Weber

"It is foolish to be bulldozing huge new roads into pristine areas of forest, right under the nose of our national parks, when world markets and local communities have rejected the logging of Tasmania’s native forest," said Jenny Weber

"The Huon Valley Environment Centre is calling for an immediate end to all logging in high conservation value forests. Protection of these forests is vital. It is now clear that a decade of pro-logging policy
has not secured jobs or sustainable futures for regional communities," said Jenny Weber.

"We are calling on all political parties to work together to ensure that these forests are protected for their outstanding natural and cultural values." Jenny Weber said.

Australia’s rich old growth forests are deserving of protection. And also today in East Gippsland, Victoria, Conservationists have entered an old growth forest that is being logged, where one conservationist is 30 metres up a tree platform which is attached to five logging machines.