Bob Brown Foundation is calling for an end to native forest logging as Forestry Tasmania has closed access to the Styx Big Tree Reserve in order to log stands of huge old growth forests in the Styx River Valley, immediately adjacent to the North Styx Conservation Area, the Styx Tall Trees Conservation Area and close to the Styx River Regional Reserve.

Shamefully, the eastern access road will be closed to the public for the full duration of the peak tourist and touring season of March to June inclusive.

“Threatened Styx valley forests support known potential giants and majestic mature tall trees that tower above a rainforest understorey. They are now locked up for logging,” Bob Brown Foundation Campaigner Erik Hayward said.

“The vast majority of the timber from two logging areas will go to export via controversial Malaysian logging company Ta Ann, while the big, old trees will be wood chipped at a financial cost to Tasmanian taxpayers,” Erik Hayward said.

Local support for the protection of the area includes the group of Derwent Valley Tourism operators who last year led a push to leave the tourist road open last year when the proposed logging of an old growth forest coupe threatened to close Styx road.

The Bob Brown Foundation supported the protection of that forest with an aerial blockade, preventing the forest from being decimated. So called Sustainable Timbers Tasmania (STT) then lied about their plans to close the road and log the forest coupe and the Premier promised that Styx Road to the Big Tree Reserve would never be closed again.

“We now call on Premier Gutwein to keep Styx Road open and protect the Valley Of Giants near Maydena by ending native forest logging,” Erik Hayward said.

“The industrial scale logging of this area is anything but sustainable, threatens the burgeoning tourist industry and is devastating to rare and endangered wildlife, the forest and the nearby Styx River. Less than a year ago a logging fire in the area escaped to burn nearby forest, tieing up emergency resources and costing tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayers money in the process,” Erik Hayward said.

“The public and small business are ignored as forests are falling and the environment degraded. An intact natural environment is a key to moving Tasmania into a sustainable and resilient future. Continued logging of old growth giants is the absolute antithesis of this,” Erik Hayward said.

25 protestors have walked into Venture Minerals' proposed tin and tungsten mine on Mount Lindsay in Tasmania's takayna / Tarkine.

Following a 62km ultra-marathon held over the weekend, the runners have today continued their epic adventure and walked into Mount Lindsay, where Jennie Bock, aged 64 has locked onto a drill rig, supported by her husband and 2 daughters.

Jennie is a retired Registered Nurse from Taroona. She has been campaigning for the protection of the Tarkine since 1995 and believes passionately that this area should be given the World Heritage protection that it deserves.

“I have chosen to lock myself to this piece of machinery today as this rainforest is simply too precious to lose," said Jennie Bock.

She reminisces to the last time she was arrested, at Mother Cummings Peak; pregnant with her first child, who is now 23 years old and here standing in solidarity with her Mum.

“This mine cannot be allowed to go ahead. We are here today to show Venture Minerals and their stakeholders and investors that this mine has no social license.

Venture Minerals aim to capitalise on fluctuated market prices, with no care for the fact that we are in the middle of a climate and biodiversity crisis.

Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley should put a STOP to this destruction and reject Venture's plan to mine Mt Lindsay. Everybody in Australia needs to see what is happening here,” said Lisa Searle, campaign organiser for the Bob Brown Foundation.

The Tasmanian Government’s five year Wild Fallow Deer Management Plan fails at the first hurdle because it refuses to recognise fallow deer as feral animals and continues to partly protect them as a hunting resource.

"Fallow deer are a feral species in Tasmania. Like rabbits, blackbirds, blackberries and gorse, they were introduced to the state in the 19th Century and are a destructive, alien invasive species.

In every other state of Australia except Victoria deer are regarded as a feral pest species and prevention, eradication and/or minimization of impact is prioritised, consistent with the world’s best practice in dealing with alien invasive species. But in Tasmania, the Government’s so called ‘ balanced’ approach is not scientific or evidence based, it is designed to appease hunters and has seen deer numbers escalate to the point where deer can now be found in the World Heritage Area," said Bob Brown Foundation spokesperson Christine Milne.

"Whilst we welcome the introduction of three zones and the lifting of all restrictions on the deer take in Zone 3, the Minister has not released an implementation plan, there is no five year target on the size of the deer population in 2027 or any specific goals about the extent of eradication in the World Heritage Area or satellite populations by that time.

Vague goals do not address the urgency of the problem or the effort that needs to be invested now to get these feral animals out of our high conservation and wilderness areas.

The Bob Brown Foundation does not agree that ‘in the existing hunting area in the TWWHA, hunting will continue to support the goal of managing the population’. This strategy has failed to reduce the numbers or curb the spread to date. Professional shooters need to be used with the goal of eradication," said Christine Milne.

Conservationists call on UNESCO to shift World Heritage meeting to Paris

The Bob Brown Foundation has called on UNESCO to strip Russia of its role as chair and host of the World Heritage Committee in response to the invasion of Ukraine. The Committee’s meeting is scheduled for the Russian city of Kazan in late June, but the BBF said it should be shifted to Paris under the Director-General of UNESCO.

"Russia has forfeited the right to chair and host this year’s meeting of the World Heritage Committee," said Bob Brown Foundation spokesperson, Geoff Law. "President Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine violates UNESCO’s mission to foster peace through science, culture and education."

The World Heritage List is UNESCO’s flagship. Each year, the Committee meets to deliberate on the protection and management of over 1100 World Heritage properties that include the Tasmanian Wilderness and Great Barrier Reef. There are seven World Heritage properties in the Ukraine.

"With its despicable invasion of a neighbouring country, Russia has lost its legitimacy as a member of UNESCO and signatory of the World Heritage Convention," said Mr Law, who has attended seven meetings of the World Heritage Committee.

"It’s no longer appropriate for people who subscribe to the peaceable objectives of UNESCO to travel to a country whose leadership is carrying out an unprovoked war of aggression."

Bob Brown Foundation has condemned the new push by Venture Minerals for their Mt Lindsay mine in Australia’s largest temperate rainforest. The Foundation is urging the public to tell Minister Sussan Ley that this mine proposal is clearly unacceptable.

Venture Minerals' re-referral of its rainforest destroying Mt Lindsay mine proposal should be rejected as clearly unacceptable under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. The mine referral, including an ore processing facility, tailings dam and waste rock dumps identifies impacts on threatened forest communities and numerous threatened species including Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle, Spotted Tailed Quoll and Tasmanian Devil.

“Mining in takayna / Tarkine is clearly unacceptable. Allowing Venture Minerals to mine one of the world's best rainforests is madness”, said Bob Brown Foundation takayna / Tarkine Campaigner Scott Jordan.

“Venture Minerals is a failed, bottom of the barrel mining speculator. They have previously abandoned plans for mines at Mt Lindsay and Mt Livingstone, and after 3 false starts at nearby Riley Creek have abandoned that mine after just a single loss making shipment”.

“takayna / Tarkine and the wildlife that call it home bear all the risks”.

“Venture’s record is littered with lies to investors, lies to regulators, and lies to the public. They cannot be trusted with a mine and associated tailings dam and waste dumps in an area of verified National and World Heritage significance”.

Public comment on the referral is open until 10th March.

The Bob Brown Foundation has backed calls by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre for the plan for six private enterprise two-storey villas on Tasmania’s wild South Coast Track to be abandoned. “Nala Mansell says there has been no consultation and is absolutely right in saying that this profit-driven proposal is a threat to the Aboriginal heritage of the track and south coast,” Bob Brown said.

“Tasmania’s Aboriginal people should be gatekeepers for developments like this. The creeping commercialisation of our World Heritage Area and national parks and the attempt to build a cable car on kunanyi/Mt Wellington by people who have little or no relationship with this magnificent land points to the far better outcome if it were returned to the Aboriginal community,” Brown said. “That would be in keeping with Premier Gutwein’s wish to find a new accommodation with first Tasmanians and the November 2021 Pathway to Truth-Telling report to the Premier by Professors Kate Warner and Tim McCormack”

Tasmania’s northwest will be abuzz with trail runners from around Australia this weekend as the annual TAKAYNA TRAIL takes place out of Waratah.

“takayna Trail comes at a time when takayna is more threatened than ever. This race rallies the ultra-trail community to one of the world’s last wild places, imminently threatened by massive, proposed intrusions by mining. Protecting one of the richest carbon storehouses in the world here in takayna would be a win-win-win for climate, biodiversity and the health of humanity. These takayna ambassadors will run through ancient rainforests, many people have not ever seen, then they will carry this remarkable ancient place back home with them armed with the dedication to advocate for protection of this climate and wildlife ark in a time of serious urgency for the planet. After they have ran 20-60 km this Saturday through the rainforests, plains and rivers of Tasmania’s Tarkine,” Bob Brown Foundation’s Campaign Manager Jenny Weber said.

“Our Trail fundraiser Simon Harris has worked with 149 runners this year to surpassing the highest fundraising ever for the event. We are again supported by our partners in the event, Patagonia and Paddy Pallin Foundation, who have made enormous contributions to defending takayna / Tarkine in the past seven years,” Jenny Weber said.

“We’re honoured to again support this important event. In the age of climate and biodiversity crises, we see running as a powerful tool for activism. The act of running for takayna / Tarkine, connects people more deeply to this place. It reminds us of the importance of wild nature and impels us to stand up and fight when these spaces are threatened,” said Dane O’Shanassy, Country Director for Patagonia Australia and New Zealand.

“takayna Trail 2022 highlights an emerging world of sports activists. This year is the first time in four years that our event has been sold out with a very long wait list of people eager to join. In its fourth year this ultra-trail marathon is growing a community of people from all over Australia who are standing up to have takayna protected as a World Heritage listed National Park and returned to Aboriginal ownership,” said Majell Backhausen takayna Trail Running Lead.

"In 2022, the race has two new adventurous courses for the 22km and 62km events. Both events take runners through the depths of takayna in a journey through the natural elements of this irreplaceable landscape. Runners are encouraged to take in the elements and surroundings in all directions, meeting every moment of discomfort with the beauty of nature.

The event also serves to educate and promote awareness of the current and future opportunities and threats to Tasmania’s takayna / Tarkine. Participants will be running through Australia’s largest temperate rainforest. The event organisers, Bob Brown Foundation, have gone out of their way to ensure that runners experience a lifechanging event, designed to connect people from all over Tasmania, Australia and the world. A place of unique Aboriginal heritage, we are working with Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre to see it returned to their custodianship," said Majell Backhausen.

"takayna / Tarkine remains today a rare gem of natural intactness in a world where the destruction of wild nature is rampant and accelerating. It should also be one of the easiest in the world to protect. Comprising just seven percent of Tasmania, the Tarkine contains the nation’s largest temperate rainforest, a galaxy of its rare and endangered wildlife, and some of the richest Aboriginal heritage in the hemisphere. The latter has been inscribed on the list of National Heritage. The cleanest air in the world, as measured by the nearby UN monitoring station, blows across the Tarkine’s shores," said Bob Brown.

…

Simon Harris is an original co-founder of the Bob Brown Foundation takayna ultra marathon. A fundraiser with a conscience for protecting our wild places. He is also the co-founder and manager of For Wild Places.

Majell Backhausen is the takayna Trail Running Lead, Community Manager at Patagonia Australia and a co-founder of For Wild Places. Dedicating the better part of the past 10 years to learning how to become a ‘better’ runner, his journey has taken him to the highest passes and finish lines of events around the globe. For takayna / Tarkine he dedicates time to planning the route, engaging the runners as well as a team of very generous volunteers who coordinate the trail-run with Bob Brown Foundation staff.

Today’s announcement from Prime Minister Scott Morrison to spend $800 million dollars on a fleet of drones is nothing more than strategic posturing and does nothing to protect the Antarctic environment. At a time when scientists are clear that Antarctica is melting faster than ever before, Morrison and his government of climate criminals have decided to make a flashy announcement with very little substance.

“Just weeks ago, scientists announced that the Thwaites Glacier, which was previously expected to melt and fall into the ocean in the next 100 to 150 years, may do so in as shockingly little as 10 years. If this happens, it will result in a global sea-level rise with massive consequences. While the Morrison government approved $600 million for new gas projects that directly contribute to Antarctica melting, it seems they are happy to spend another $800 million so we can watch it happen via drones,” said Alistair Allan, Antarctic campaigner at the Bob Brown Foundation.

“As usual, the Australian government’s interest in Antarctica is sadly misplaced. Rather than spending $800 million on drones, that further invite the militarisation of Antarctica through dual-use activities, the $800 million could go towards removing the abandoned Wilkes station, with its leeching fuel and chemical dumps, and restoring that area. It could go towards suggesting and creating an Antarctic Specially Managed Area in the Vestfold Hills outside of Davis station, an area that Australia almost destroyed with a proposal to build a concrete airport.”

“How Prime Minister Scott Morrison can boldly declare these drones will help with climate research, while he and his industry mates recklessly plough on with climate-destroying projects, is beyond comprehension. The biggest threat to Antarctica is a heating Antarctica. From sea-level rise to krill populations and the penguins we love, all of us face dire consequences if we don’t address climate change. The prime minister should use this $800 million to help transition out of fossil fuels right now. Not fly a bunch of cameras over Antarctica to show us what we are about to lose.”

'A pale shade’ of Bob Hawke’s billion trees’ - Brown.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s plan to plant 150 million trees to cut down for industry within three decades is a very pale shade of Bob Hawke’s 1989 promise to plant one billion trees to save ecosystems, former Greens leader and environmental campaigner Bob Brown said in Tasmania today.

PM Bob Hawke’s announcement of one billion trees in 1989, which led to the set-up of internationally applauded Landcare, showed an environmental understanding which is entirely missing from PM Morrison’s tree-planting announcement.

On 9 July, 1989, Hawke argued that: “Environmental problems today, more than ever, are global. In just over 200 years since the Industrial Revolution, human activity has significantly increased the earth's temperature, threatening the onset of the greenhouse effect. Huge areas of the world's tree cover have been destroyed and we are obliterating thousands of living species. We have polluted the world's oceans, seas and rivers, degraded the earth's soils, damaged the fragile Arctic and Antarctic environments.’

Brown says that “Liberal Senator Duniam’s admission on ABC radio this morning that former Forestry Minister Eric Abetz’ 2006 managed investment schemes to promote plantation forestry ‘had terrible outcomes’ underscores what a debacle the continued diversion of taxpayers’ funds into private enterprise forestry has been for both major parties. While thousands of hectares of the plantations failed and have been bulldozed in recent years, logging provides less than one percent of Tasmania’s jobs. The Liberals are tied into the logging corporations against the public interest. Far from ‘capitalism can do’ is a clear case of capitalism failing and ongoing government subsidies intervention being a big loser for the average taxpayer.”

“If the last lot of managed Investment Scheme plantations failed because they were planted in the wrong place without adequate rainfall and subject to weeds and invasive species, why will this lot be any different?”

“Three tree-killer questions for the Prime Minister to answer while he is in Tasmania:

1. Why did his Minister for the Environment, Sussan Ley, on 6 February, reject mining company MMG’s offer to protect large trees in the Tarkine rainforest where it plans a toxic waste dump for its Rosebery mine. Ms Ley told the company not to spare the big trees. Scientists say the forest giants are likely to provide critical nesting sites for the Tasmanian masked owl which Ley lists as threatened with extinction.

2. With the United Nations calling for the protection of native forests as a key action to address to global warming and biodiversity loss, why does the Prime Minister subsidise the logging of these very rich carbon stores throughout eastern Australia and in Tasmania and now subsidise plantation forestry?

3. If so much public money is needed for trees to be cut down in a few decades to meet the current ‘shortage', how come wharves at Burnie, Bell Bay, Hobart and elsewhere are stacked with timber for export?”

Table showing employment in Native Forest industry vs Plantations

Bob Brown Foundation today welcomed the decision by Tasmania Police to abandon charges against 38 protestors arising from arrests on Helilog Road between May and July 2021. The protestors were arrested while defending Tasmania’s takayna / Tarkine from a proposed heavy metals tailings dam by mining company MMG.

The forests and their endangered Masked Owls in takayna / Tarkine where these protests took place need permanent secure protection.

“These charges were laid and arrests made because Forestry Tasmania claimed to have closed the road when they had no power to do that. Their own Forest Management Act, sets out how that was to be done. It is astonishing and a matter of grave concern that Forestry Tasmania has not read its own legislation and cannot follow simple requirements to put up a sign,” BBF Campaigner Jenny Weber said.

“Forestry Tasmania unlawfully closed a public road solely to interfere with, and disrupt, a protest by environmentalists against the private mining company MMG. Forestry Tasmania should be in the dock and paying the costs for these 38 protestors who weren’t breaking the law. This public road still has the miner’s boom gates and 24-hour security,”

“We have been blockading this road again, since January, while the state and federal government sanctioned destruction of ancient takayna / Tarkine habitat for the endangered Masked Owl and Wedge-tailed Eagle looms, we will continue to defend the place against MMG’s plans to destroy 285 ha of forest,” Jenny Weber said.

In an age of climate and biodiversity crises, we can avoid citizens being arrested and facing court for defending Tasmania’s environment if the Government protects this island’s rainforests, native forests and wildlife. A test case for the remaining charges of hindering and obstructing mining operations is listed on 12 April 2022.