In a major feat from our Foundation and citizens defending takayna / Tarkine, we have been defending Frankland River forests for 100 days.

More than 100 citizens have participated in our peaceful vigil in the Frankland River forests. We have stalled the logging since early February when the camp was re-established after the Wedge-tailed Eagle breeding exclusion zone ended and meant logging could commence in these ancient forests.

Great coverage of our Conservation Camp in French magazine Liberation.

Even better if you can read French. Francophones click through and enjoy!

Last night I met a quoll. It was fossicking about our camp in the wilds of takayna / Tarkine. When I was a child we called them “native cats” and they were famous for slaughtering our chickens. That was in the Blue Mountains in the 1960s. None have been sighted there for decades.

Today I’m in the northwest of Tasmania, supporting Bob Brown Foundation’s stand to protect some of the world’s oldest Aboriginal sacred sites and the largest intact tract of cool temperate rainforests from logging, vehicular abuse and unsustainable mining.

Tim Cooper is a Tasmanian photographer who has been spending many nights in the Frankland river conservation camp. Over the long weekend in March he was in camp and took these great images of the night sky, the fungi along one of our tagged walking tracks through the threatened ancient forests. Citizens have been occupying these threatened forests since February 2018 and protecting two areas of forest that are on the logging schedule.

As I drove into the takayna / Tarkine and first saw the logging I had to hold back tears. It hit me. This is really happening.

I had finally made it down to beautiful Tasmania to explore, soak in the pristine wilderness and see the incredible coastline I had heard so much about. I found out about the protest camp to save the takayna / Tarkine from some fellow travellers and was eager to go. I wanted to see this beautiful temperate rainforest and do what I could to help protect it.

It’s been 18 days since I began occupying the Frankland River logging coup and sleeping 20 metres up a 300-400 year old myrtle with fellow conservationists who also believe the Tarkine should be recognised for its World Heritage values and protected as a National Park. The area we are occupying, along with about a dozen others, is slated for logging this year by (and it’s hard for me to bring myself to say the words) ‘Sustainable Timber Tasmania’, formerly known as Forestry Tasmania. I have to admit that until now, even though I’ve known about old growth logging in Tassie, I’ve been pretty ignorant about the true gravity of the situation down here.

Read the full article here

Read Full Article Here

Day 3 

Sumac Conservation Camp - takayna / Tarkine

And so once again I find myself up a beautiful tree in the Tarkine, this time in a proposed logging coupe near the Sumac Lookout, along Keppel Creek. On chopping block for this year according to ‘Sustainable Timbers Tasmania’ (formerly Forestry Tasmania) 3-year wood production plan. We arrived on Monday with a group of 10 committed conservationists, and have set up a camp to observe, monitor, and familiarise ourselves with this forest. It is transitional forest, on the way to becoming pure rainforest, with several tall eucalypts but dominated by rainforest species such as myrtle, horizontal, sassafras and leatherwood. 

Bob Brown Foundation and community members have set up camp in a threatened forest canopy in Tasmania’s Tarkine. Four climbers are camping in the canopy of an area of old-growth rainforest, that was recently scheduled to be logged.

“Logging in Tasmania is destroying unique wildlife-rich forests, sending species towards extinction and contributing to climate change,” Bob Brown Foundation Campaign Manager Jenny Weber said.