Forestry Tas court action fails
SUE NEALES

February 14, 2007 05:00pm

FORESTRY Tasmania has failed in its bid to obtain a legal injunction in Tasmania's Supreme Court to stop a southern Tasmanian environmental group from organising a protest march into the sensitive Weld Valley on Sunday.
The injunction application was withdrawn by Forestry Tasmania after nearly two hours of legal debate, when Tasmania’s Chief Justice, Peter Underwood, ruled the key evidence on which Forestry Tasmania was basing its claim was inadmissible.

Forestry Tasmania had sought to prevent the Huon Valley Environment Centre (HVEC) and six of its senior members from emailing, texting, handing out pamphlets or posting information on the internet about Sunday’s planned "walk-in’’ rally in the Weld Valley.

It would also have prevented the HVEC from allowing protestors to sleep at its headquarters in the southern Tasmanian town of Huonville, or at any of its named office-bearers’ homes.

Most of the "evidence’’ presented by Forestry Tasmania was obtained from internet sites associated with recent protest actions in the Weld Valley near Geeveston, which Mr Underwood ruled could not be accepted by the court as fact since the authorship of internet material was uncertain and unprovable.

Chief Justice Underwood also ruled inadmissible parts of the sworn statement made by Forestry Tasmania’s Huon District senior forest manager, Stephen Davis, that he expected protestors on Sunday to lock themselves on to logging machinery, to conduct tree-sits and to "otherwise interfere with forest operations’’.

The judge said these were Mr Davis’ beliefs and not facts, and as such could not be accepted as evidence by the court..

A triumphant president of the Environment Centre, Adam Burling, who was one of the individuals named in the injunction, described the dismissal of the case as a triumph for democracy and free speech.

He described the attempted injunction application as part of the new "heavy-handed'' tactics being played by Forestry Tasmania and the Lennon Government in the ongoing dispute about the logging of Tasmania's native forests.

Mr Burling said the peaceful march into the out-of-bounds Weld Valley on Sunday organised by the Huon Valley Environment Centre would now go ahead unimpeded, with hopes more than 100 protestors will "bear witness’’ to the "utrageous logging of wild ancient forests’’ now underway.

Forestry Tasmania attempted to take the last-minute legal action after becoming increasingly concerned for the safety of its workers and independent contractors on Weld Valley logging sites.

Its local district manager, Steve Davis, said trespassing protestors had become increasingly reckless in their attempts to impede logging, compromising safety at the site.

"We are disappointed but not surprised that our application was not successful, but the court has made it clear that it doesn’t sanction illegal entry onto state forest,'' Mr Davis said.

“We would call on the Huon Environment Centre to call off Sunday’s event; it is still illegal.''

Justice Underwood ordered that Forestry Tasmania pay all legal costs of the Huon Valley Environment Centre and its co-defendants, estimated to run to between $7000 and $10,000.