11 May 2022

Today, ocean activists from Bob Brown Foundation climbed onto Tasmanian salmon pens and held a banner to protest the toxic salmon industry while the Blue Economy CRC Salmon Symposium is on in Hobart.

“This is the first time in Tasmania a protest is being held on the toxic salmon factories and it won’t be the last,” said Alistair Allan, Marine Campaigner at Bob Brown Foundation.

4Corners had an unmistakable message: everyone must accept many more mines in Australia’s sensitive environments and environmentalists should swap to believing that mining is the saviour of the planet. But that is bunk.

The program ran, unchallenged, the claim by the Australian Minerals Council and its acolytes that we must all get behind mines to save us from climate change - the very hazard the AMC has spent decades fuelling through its strident advocacy for coal, gas and oil extraction corporations.

The program avoided the fact that tin (which Venture Minerals is set to mine in the Tarkine) is not critical but one of the most abundant minerals on Earth. Venture Minerals threatens the pristine Huon pine precinct of the Wilson River in the Tarkine but 4Corners dropped that fact from its story.

4Corners knew about but did not question the Morrison government’s plans for 10 mining precincts in Australia where environmental laws will be effectively removed, as the AMC wants. The Tarkine will be one of these if Morrison is re-elected.

Nor did it say that across Australia, in particular Tasmania, governments are moving to impose draconian penalties, including years in jail, for environmentalists who peacefully defend forests and other wildlife habitats from mining destruction.

Not a word aired about the need to curb consumerism if any of the natural planet is to survive our human onslaught.

Our foundation is committed to Australia’s environmental bounty and, for one, our campaign to defend the forest and wildlife fastness of the Tarkine will take on the miners and loggers until the region is declared protected for all times.

The most telling moment of the program was seeing and hearing the defenders of the forest in the Tarkine and in the Northern Territory woodlands. In their pluck is the saving of the planet.

You can watch the full programme here

The outrageous, ongoing, deliberate killing of native seals by Tasmania’s Atlantic salmon industry is about to be spread by the state and federal Liberal governments into Australia’s most vital seal breeding grounds in Bass Strait, says Bob Brown Foundation.

“According to the Tasmanian Inquirer, seals are being killed at a rate of nearly two a month. It is likely that hundreds more are being blinded, or otherwise wounded by explosive devices, with Tasmania’s captured environmental authorities agreeing to the cruelty and bloodshed,” Bob Brown said in Hobart today.

The Tasmanian government’s own wildlife information includes: “Four species of seal once bred in Tasmania's Bass Strait, the Australian fur seal, Long-nosed fur seal, Australian sea lion, and the Southern elephant seal. Three of these species were totally eradicated and only the Australian fur seal now remains in Bass Strait. Approximately 17,000 pups are born each year at both Tasmanian and Victorian breeding colonies and the total Australian fur seal population is estimated to be 60,000 to 80,000. Prior to the exploitation of the sealing industry, there was an estimated three-quarters of a million seals in Bass Strait.”

The same site says human beings are the seals’ greatest predators.

“Now, into this fractured cradle of Australian seals, long before they have been able to recover from the historic slaughter, the Liberal Rockcliff government is letting loose the killer aquaculture factory industry with its ammunition, ready to slaughter more seals. Very likely the Bass Strait death and maiming rate will be a multiple of that already occurring in Tasmania’s southern waters. This is all approved by Sussan Ley and the Morrison government. The industrial fish farm corporations have these governments violating every good environmental principle when it comes to protecting our native seal colonies,” Bob Brown said.

Morrison’s Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries, Jonathon Duniam, has said that the Bass Strait trial represented an exciting opportunity for the aquaculture industry.

“The Blue Economy CRC are well equipped to conduct the trial, given their research expertise in offshore sustainable aquaculture," he said.

Which immediately raises this question for Duniam: “where is the Blue Economy CRC’s expertise on the seal killing? Put that on the table so the public, whose tax dollars are propping up this Bass Strait venture, can see if you have a leg to stand on,” Brown said.

No one has been more effective in Scott Morrison’s side-lining of national environmental responsibility than his close associate and Minister for the Environment Sussan Ley. Ley has avidly backed a series of coal mines and gas fracking operations as well as logging of native forests across the nation. However, last Monday the Federal Court decided that Ley’s shepherding of the mining industry had gone too far.

Justice Moshinsky gave the giant Chinese state-owned mining corporation MMG a win by refusing the Bob Brown Foundation’s application for an injunction to stop MMG’s work on a toxic mine waste storage dam in Tasmania’s takayna/Tarkine rainforest. But, in doing so, he overturned Ley’s decision to require no provisions to protect the Tasmanian Masked owls which live in the forest. These are Earth’s largest barn owls and are on the Commonwealth Government’s list of Australian birds vulnerable to extinction and so, by law, warranting the minister’s protection.

In 2021 MMG began 14 kilometres of roading into the Tarkine rainforest to drill 170 sites for a dam across McKimmies Creek to store toxic tailings from its Rosebery mine via a pipeline over the Pieman River. The dam will flood 145 hectares of the ancient forest with acidic wastes, killing the lot. MMG has several options for its mine wastes, including pulverising the wastes and returning them to empty mine areas underground: this is now world’s best practice but costs more.

When hundreds of people blockaded the waste dump works, Minister Ley asked MMG to take her on a tour of inspection. Environmentalists, kept at a distance, pointed out that bulldozing for the proposed dam site threatened a number of rare and endangered species including the Masked owl and was therefore illegal without her authorisation. Ley took a week to study the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act before putting a halt to MMG’s works and requiring it to duly apply for her authorisation.

MMG’s environmental consultants, North Barker Ecosystem Management Services had noted that Masked owls were in the vicinity and recommended that the oldest forest trees, in which the owls nest, be protected by keeping roadbuilding machinery at least 15 metres from them. So, in its application, MMG assured minister Ley it would guarantee a 15 metres protection zone around trees more than one metre in diameter or with holes large enough to accommodate nesting owls. But Ley was in no mood to accept such restraint.

Through her departmental delegate, she wrote that “I considered that this measure will likely be adequate to protect any potential breeding trees. However, I further considered that the proposed action is unlikely to significantly impact Tasmanian Masked Owl regardless of this measure, and that therefore this measure should not be a requirement.”

I have never before known a minister for the environment to reject a mining company’s offer to take extra measures to protect a species facing extinction.

The Federal Court has now effectively overridden her negligence and required MMG to implement its offer to protect the trees the owls most need. However, this restriction only applies to MMG’s road works and drilling in preparation for its waste storage dam in the rainforest.If the planned dam goes ahead, the toxic wastes will kill every tree in the flood zone, Masked owl nesting site or not.

The on-the-ground defence of the forest has continued in the Tarkine wilds with several more people arrested in the fortnight since Justice Moshinsky’s ruling.

In Hobart, down the street from the Federal Court, the Tasmanian parliament has also seen protests as it considered two pieces of anti-environmental legislation from Liberal Premier Jeremy Rockliff’s government.

The first bill increased penalties, including jail sentences, for citizens who are arrested defending Tasmania’s native forests. The second, awaiting further debate, legalises the last forty years of forest destruction in Tasmania which has been found, due to administrative error, to be against the law. In both cases, Labor supports the bills which were fiercely opposed by the Greens. Ley has certainly not intervened to support her environmental constituency.

The bid for an injunction having failed, BBF’s challenge to Ley’s decision to allow the works for the tailings dam to proceed will now be heard in the Federal Court in June. Outside the court, the question is whether Ley will still be in her ministerial chair as Australia’s most powerful environmentalist after 21 May. Or, if Labor wins, who from amongst the Labor ranks will be appointed to that chair? A Labor Minister for the Environment’s will have to decide be whether to continue to defend MMG’s toxic waste dump plan in the Federal Court.

While the Greens announced a week back that they will seek World Heritage status for takayna/the Tarkine, Labor, like the Liberals, has opposed that option and has, so far, supported MMG’s waste dump proposal.

So it looks like Tasmania’s Masked owls will remain out on a limb.

Works have again been halted as protests continue at the site of Chinese state-owned MMG’s proposed tailings dam in takayna / Tarkine. Teacher Karen Weldrick has locked onto the front of an MMG vehicle preventing it from entering the rainforest site and effectively blocking road access.

“Here I am in Australia’s largest remaining temperate rainforest. It’s an ancient and precious place that is home to many rare and endangered species. I am here in the cold and the pouring rain with my neck locked to a vehicle because the state has failed in its duty of care and is allowing this toxic tailings dam to proceed”, said Ms Weldrick.

This is the latest disruption to MMG’s planned operations in a sixteen month campaign.

“If Guy Barnett believes that his new, draconian, unjust laws will silence dissent he is mistaken. If he wants to follow the civil rights examples of China or Russia then he should note that citizens continue to protest and speak out. He can make Tasmania a pariah, but he will not stop these protests”, said Bob Brown Foundation takayna / Tarkine campaigner Scott Jordan.

“These ancient forests need protection, and we fear their loss more than we fear Barnett’s laws”.

5 May 2022

Simultaneous protests for Tasmania’s wild places today from the forests to parliament to Sydney

Bob Brown Foundation is protesting in takayna / Tarkine today to prevent MMG from building a toxic waste dump, protesting at a Sydney mining investors forum to dissuade investors from two new mines proposed by Venture Minerals in takayna and holding anti-protest law demonstrations at Tasmania’s Parliament House.

“Protests at mining investor forums. Protests in the threatened ancient forests. Protests on the steps of Parliament. The drills won’t drill, the machines won’t roll, and these nature destroying projects will face disruption,” takayna Campaigner Scott Jordan said.

BOB BROWN FOUNDATION SECOND COURT FIGHT TO DEFEND TAKAYNA FROM WASTE DUMP

In the Supreme Court of Tasmania, Bob Brown Foundation is, with Scott Jordan and Courtney Hayes, challenging the Tasmanian mining Minister’s 31 January 2022 gift of a questionable mining lease to the Chinese government-owned miner MMG in takayna to facilitate its proposed heavy metals tailings waste dump. The Foundation also has a Federal Court battle against the Federal Environment Minister’s approval for destructive works in Tasmania’s takayna world heritage value forests.

Today in Tasmania’s Supreme court was the first return date of the case against the Minister for Mining who has made a questionable decision to grant MMG an unnecessary mining lease over a public road in takayna / Tarkine.

“Our Foundation wanted an order that the Minister makes full disclosure of all the documents relating to the decision. The Minister opposed that and was overruled by the Judge, who made an order that Minister Barnett provide an affidavit about all the documents relating to the decision,” Jenny Weber said.

“Today, Minister Barnett expressed necessity for this court proceeding to be heard promptly because of ongoing protests. Bob Brown Foundation is challenging the granting of a mining lease over Helilog road, covering 6.5 kilometres on a public road in a public forest outside miner MMG’s proposed tailings dam site,” Jenny Weber said.

“This lease doesn’t facilitate the proposed tailings dam. Its purpose is to prevent the public from protesting and even seeing what ancient forests will be lost if this highly contentious destruction goes ahead. This government is hell bent on allowing the desecration of this globally significant wild and fragile rainforest, but it wants to do it away from the public gaze and protected from the citizen’s right to protest,” Jenny Weber said.

The Assistant Solicitor-General represented the Minister and Chinese government-owned MMG was represented by Tasmania’s former Solicitor-General Michael O’Farrell SC.

The case has been adjourned to 25 May at 11 am.

Significant biodiversity values and koala habitat at imminent threat of destruction by NSW Forestry Corporation under the current and outdated timber certification schemes

Bob Brown Foundation is today warning timber retailers and customers that timber from critical areas of koala habitat, old growth and rainforest is about to enter national and international timber markets. The Foundation is calling for a nationwide end to native forest logging.

A critical area of koala habitat would be protected if the proposal for the Great Koala National Park became reality.

“Citizen scientists have been monitoring these areas, and assisting local residents, but calls for consultation have fallen on deaf ears. FCNSW will begin clearing Tuckers Nob this week.

The area is inside the proposed Great Koala National Park, and is part of a ‘Forest Bridge’, linking koala habitat on the coasts, to the Great Dividing Range,” said Doro Babeck, NSW Campaign Organiser for the Bob Brown Foundation.

“Leaving these forests intact and connected is absolutely critical for the survival of koalas, particular now that private logging rules also have been changed to allow the increasing intensity of logging.”

“This will no doubt lead to even more clearing and therefore must mean that logging in the State’s Forests, which are publicly owned, should cease altogether. We ask the government to protect forests that are providing habitat for the endangered koala. We can’t continue to increase logging and expect their numbers to double. This is not going to happen.”

“Koalas need interconnected habitats to ensure the survival of the species, they can’t just be ‘locked’ in one area as they continuously move around, especially when young koalas find new habitat.

Notorious Forestry Corporation NSW is therefore responsible for threatening the loss of Koala habitat. Investigations by Citizen Scientists in the forests on the Mid North Coast in Tuckers Nob State Forest and throughout the North Coast have revealed that native forests, including threatened rainforest and koala habitat, will be clear-felled and replaced by plantations."

Conversion to plantations is not permitted under environmental labelling standards.

Research has revealed that despite being certified as 'sustainable' by both Responsible Wood Australia and the Forest Stewardship Council, FCNSW is logging native forest and calling it plantation timber. Areas investigated include Conglomerate, Orara East, Boambee, Tuckers Nob, and many other State Forests across the NSW north coast public plantation estate.

“Logging companies and certifiers are working together and converting native forests to plantations. Certifiers are guilty of ignoring these practises, done by Forestry Corporation NSW, so more timber enters the plantation estate and buyers are being misled thinking they are buying sustainable timber,” said BBF Foundation NSW campaigner Doro Babeck. “It is ‘greenwashing’ of the worst kind, and yet the certification schemes to which FCNSW is accredited seem powerless to do anything about it, despite logging occurring in koala habitat.”

Earlier this year allegations were made by researcher Dr Tim Cadman from Griffith University on behalf of stakeholders that NSW high conservation value forest areas inside hardwood plantations managed by FCNSW were at risk. Despite this, the Forestry Corporation will begin logging inside potential koala habitat and watercourses under both schemes.

“These remnant forests and creek areas are critical for the survival of threatened species, including the koala,” said Dr Cadman. “They are the key connections between the managed plantations and the adjacent natural forest. Without them, the biodiversity values meant to be protected under certification will be gone. There should be no logging of these remnant forests and watercourses.”

Bob Brown Foundation has returned overnight to shut down road access to a proposed toxic, heavy metals tailings dam in rainforest within takayna / Tarkine.

Jade Elford 35, a local nurse from Queenstown today is blocking the road into the proposed MMG tailings dam site, by pitching her tent in defiance.

“Jade is camping with her tent set up in the middle of a road where roads should not exist. Yet MMG wants to add 15km of new roads to access over 160 new proposed drilling and test pitting sites before their tailings dam can even be approved," said Bob Brown foundation takayna / Tarkine Campaigner Scott Jordan.

“This rainforest on either side of her tent is some of the most incredible tracts of Gondwanan relic that exists on this planet. So like hundreds of others over the past 15 months, she is camped here in defiance of the destruction of this place."

Bob Brown Foundation is also in the Supreme Court this morning for directions hearing in its challenge to the granting of a mining lease over Helilog road, covering 6.5 kilometres outside the proposed tailings dam.

“This lease doesn’t facilitate the proposed tailings dam. Its purpose is to prevent the public from protesting and even seeing what is at stake. This government is hell bent on allowing the desecration of this globally significant wild and fragile rainforest, but it wants to do it away from the public gaze."

“We will continue to put these rainforests firmly on the public agenda."

From takayna / Tarkine where two citizens were arrested protesting today to the Parliament where the Government pushed through an illegal logging cover-up bill, it appears Tasmania is being governed for the native forest logging corporations and mining company MMG.

In takayna today, Kevin Vaughan (73) and Andrew Browne (69) were arrested after defending the ancient forests from mining company MMG’s plans to push in new roads and clear forests for a proposed heavy metals waste dump. All citizens in the area were moved on by Tasmania Police for 14 days.

MMG is a highly controversial mining company that is facing protests in Tasmania and Peru. The Chinese government-owned company has failed to evict protesters in Peru, at the Bambas mine site that has defiant opposition from indigenous groups.

“Looks like MMG has form. Bob Brown Foundation protesting in Tasmania and locals doing the same in Peru in spite of MMG trying to oust protesters,” Christine Milne, Environmentalist and Bob Brown Foundation Board Member said today.

“In Tasmania, Premier Rockliff’s first day of Parliament as Premier today was marked with protest for wild places, outside parliament and in ancient takayna / Tarkine,” Jenny Weber said.

“Protests in Tasmania are not solved by bringing in draconian anti-protest laws. We learnt today that the controversial anti-protests laws will be debated in parliament on Thursday. A safe and secure future for us all can be provided by protecting native forests, endangered species and takayna / Tarkine in this climate and biodiversity crisis,” Jenny Weber said.