The green, green crass of home
The Mercury Editorial - 19th Feb 2007
You don't have to be a greenie to find the idea of an early-morning knock on the door threatening legal action distasteful.
It is the kind of behaviour we usually associate with repressive regimes.
But that is exactly what happened to a group of relatively obscure environmentalists last Friday.
Eight o'clock in the morning and three senior members of the Huon
Valley Environment Centre were served with writs by Forestry Tasmania.
Until then not many Tasmanians would have known that the Huon Valley
Environment Centre even existed let alone that it was large enough to
have three senior office-bearers.
But Forestry Tasmania, whose business it is to know what's going on in the forests, did know about them.
Forestry Tasmania wanted the courts of Tasmania to stop them promoting
what would probably have been a fairly low-key so-called "walk-in"
rally of the latest area of green-tinged significance, the Weld Valley.
The legal action was played out in the Supreme Court of Tasmania before the state's Chief Justice Peter Underwood, no less.
By the end of the day Forestry Tasmania left the court empty handed.
Dismissing Forestry's application for an injunction, Justice Underwood
pointed out that he was in no way authorising or sanctioning protests
in the Weld Valley.
Thank goodness for an independent judiciary.
He also ordered Forestry Tasmanian to pay all the legal costs -
estimated at between $7000 and $10,000 - of the environment centre and
its co-defendants.
That money, of course, will be paid by Tasmanian taxpayers. So will the
costs of Forestry lawyers and even the people who had to get up early
to knock on those doors in Huonville to deliver the writs.
For it should be not forgotten that Forestry Tasmania is a government operated business.
It is the business behind the fabulous Tahune AirWalk, Dismal Swamp and
numerous walks, drives and rafting activities. Its job is to manage one
of the state's greatest assets - its forests.
Everyone loves the forests.
Forestry employs people as guides and botanists, people with degrees in environmental science, people who love trees.
But when a minority group tries to focus attention on harvesting
activities it disagrees with - and it must be remembered that some
would weep if even a leaf was harmed - there are people at Forestry who
obviously don't see green, they see red.
The bunker mentality surfaces, the big boots go on, the chainsaws are fired up and common sense goes out the window.
No one is ever going to win over hearts and minds with a punch in the solar plexus.
Bob Brown knew that no one is the mainstream was going to listen to him
until he dressed in suits and ties and spoke in a calm and easy manner.
He should be a lesson for people on the other side of the debate.
Some people are never going to agree with anything Forestry does.
But delivering writs at eight in the morning is not the answer.
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