Media Release: Tarkine forest protest halting planned logging
Bob Brown Foundation is successfully defending the ancient forests of takayna / Tarkine with another group of Tarkine Defenders occupying the threatened Sumac forests this morning. Tree-sitter Alex Wylie, an engineer from Hobart, is in the canopy of a eucalyptus tree in the Sumac region of takayna / Tarkine.
Read moreMedia Release: Tarkine arrest as forest defence grows.
Tasmania police were called in to arrest a peaceful defender of the Tarkine rainforest at Sumac Ridge south of Smithton today.
Bob Brown Foundation says that it has had a camp protecting the Sumac Ridge forest for three years. Following the arrest of tree-sitter Josh Nichols on Sumac Ridge last Friday, the forest vigil camp had been re-established this morning. Andy Szollosi, stayed on his treetop platform as police moved everyone from the area. Mr Szollosi was then arrested.
Tasmania’s state forest authority, renamed Sustainable Timbers Tasmania, plans an immediate start on a logging road along the ridge to blitz cathedral-like rainforest containing tall flowering eucalypts for Malaysian logging company Ta Ann and the woodchip market. After logging, the forest remnants will be fire-bombed at public expense despite the forests being as carbon-dense as those in the Amazon and containing rare and endangered wildlife.
“This is a watershed moment in Tasmanian forest history,” Bob Brown said in Hobart today.
Read moreMedia Release: Tree-sitter arrested protecting Tarkine forests
Twenty-one years old Hobart student Josh Nichols was arrested early this afternoon from his tree platform in the Sumac Ridge Tarkine rainforest. Josh was sitting firm against Hodgman government plans to send in the bulldozers as early as next week.
The Bob Brown Foundation had established the Sumac rainforest camp at our Big Canopy Campout with 45 people last weekend.
“Josh Nichols is a braveheart for the Earth. Here in Tasmanian rainforests every bit as vital as the Amazon forests, he has sat firm against needless destruction in an age of climate emergency and this extinction crisis,” said Bob Brown who visited Nichol’s tree this morning.
Media Release: Police arrive to remove Tarkine forest protest
More than twenty police have arrived at the Bob Brown Foundation’s forest blockade in takayna / Tarkine to remove protesters. A tree-sitter is 25 metres up an ancient eucalyptus tree and a blockade camp was established on the road outside an area of forest in the Sumac region on the weekend.
The Sumac forests in takayna / Tarkine have been threatened with the creation of a new logging road for the past three years and our Foundation’s peaceful protest has saved them from destruction.
“Premier Hodgman has failed the climate, wildlife, and Tasmania’s economy today again. Sending in a small army of police to remove people from protecting an ancient rainforest from logging is a shame. Our Foundation remains committed to protesting in defence of these ancient forests,” Bob Brown Foundation’s Campaign Manager Jenny Weber said.
Media Release: Aborigines ban shames Australia: Brown.
The Queensland court order banning Wangan and Jagalingou elder Adrian Burragubba and his son Coede from returning to their land at the Adani coal mine site shames Australia, former Greens leader Bob Brown said today.
“Burragubba’s father and grandfather and countless previous generations were born on this country, but now an Indian multi-billionaire has prior access. Gautam Adani bankrupted Burragubba for fighing to save his traditional country, and now the system is setting out to jail him or his family members if they return."
Read moreMedia Release: Blockade established in threatened Tarkine rainforests.
Conservationists have returned to establish a blockade in a remote Tarkine rainforest as logging looms in the wildlife rich forest. A peaceful occupation was established over the weekend to protest a proposed new logging road.
“These forests have been threatened by a new logging road for the past three years and our Foundation’s peaceful protest has saved them from destruction. However, the logging threat is once again looming this spring/summer,” Bob Brown Foundation Campaigner Scott Jordan said.
“Sustainable Timbers Tasmania's logging plans lock in ongoing woodchipping of threatened species habitat, more loss of Tasmania's ancient wilderness like takayna / Tarkine and more public subsidies to prop up a failing, outdated business model.”
These threatened forests are located south west of the popular and iconic Sumac Lookout overlooking the Arthur River. Tasmania’s government logging agency has plans to flatten these forests.
Read moreMedia Release: Deer spread being hosted by state government - Brown.
The Hodgman majority Liberal Government is getting on with the job of hosting the spread of feral deer into the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, Bob Brown Foundation says, following yesterday’s fact-free press release on the issue from minister Guy Barnett.
“The government has now had years to implement a program, including non-recreational culling, to keep the world heritage area free of marauding feral deer but has done nothing on the ground except waffle,” Bob Brown said today.
Media Release: Gandhi Anniversary: Indians Join Outcry Over Adani ‘PR Stunt’.
Indian community activists have joined Australia’s Bob Brown Foundation in condemning coal mining company Adani’s funding of today’s Gandhi celebration in Brisbane.
Adani is a ‘Ahimsa’ funder of the celebration of the 150th birthday of Gandhi on 2 October 1869. The event involves a convoy of cars driving from Coffs Harbour to Brisbane and will culminate in a ceremony at Brisbane’s Gandhi statue this afternoon.
A community group in India’s central state of Chhattisgarh has called Adani’s involvement an empty publicity stunt: “We at Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan believe that Adani’s attempt to support events in the name of Gandhi is merely a PR stunt. Instead of sponsoring events and doing empty publicity stunts, Adani would be well-advised to reflect and try and imbibe some of Gandhian values in its business strategy and practices.”
Yesterday in Brisbane, former Greens senator Bob Brown said Adani, currently having non-violent citizens arrested for protesting his Galilee Basin coal mine, is leeching off Gandhi’s reputation.
Media Release: Appeal to Stop Adani Funding Fails
The Bob Brown Foundation’s appeal to replace Adani as the funder of tomorrow’s Gandhi ceremony in Brisbane has been turned down. Brown spoke with the ceremony organisers yesterday.
“It was an genuine effort to rescue this celebration of the 150th anniversary of Gandhi’s birth from the offensive stigma of Adani as sponsor,” Bob Brown said today.
Nature-violating Adani sponsors nature-protecting Gandhi’s anniversary.
Wednesday 2nd October is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, with celebratory events in India and around the world, including in Brisbane, Australia.
“Perversely, billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani is a sponsor of the Mahatma Gandhi celebration. Gandhi’s commitment to peace, non-violence, frugality, vegetarianism and the environment set a modern benchmark in selflessness. That is the polar opposite to Gautam Adani’s hoarded billions, eviction of people from their lands and invasion of the biosphere for profit, a benchmark of modern plutocratic selfishness,” Bob Brown said.