Sustainable Timber Tasmania has revoked orders banning 19 protestors from accessing Tasmania’s 800,000 hectares of native forestry estate – a decision the activists say is too little, too late.
The Bob Brown Foundation protestors had received the prohibition orders following protests against forest logging at Meunna in the state’s north-west in early February.
The protesters appeared in the Supreme Court on Friday morning and plan to continue their legal challenge, arguing that Sustainable Timber Tasmania misapplied state law and “unlawfully infringed on rights of citizens to enter public forests”.
The group claims Sustainable Timber Tasmania, whom they refer to as Forestry Tasmania despite a 2016-rebrand, attempted to “silence scrutiny of their forest destruction”.
“The imposition of these orders was clearly aimed to prevent protestors from being able to have their voice heard. It was unlawful and unconstitutional and the eleventh hour back down by Forestry Tasmania is an admission that they overstepped in their clumsy and heavy handed orders,” Bob Brown campaigner Scott Jordan said.
“They wanted this to disappear and be swept under the rug, but the nineteen community members are pushing on with this case. Justice must be served. Wrong was done to all of us who were prohibited from public forests until Forestry Tasmania revoked the orders.”
Jordan said he and others entered the 17-hectare logging coupe to “peacefully protest ongoing logging”.
“We complied with the directions of attending police officers, including directions to leave the site,” he said.
“Forestry Tasmania has, in our view, unlawfully misapplied a provision of the Act that addresses genuine public safety measures. It’s an excessive overreach to ban opponents from public forests that Forestry Tasmania’s website tells us to visit, go camping and bushwalking in.”
The case is scheduled to return to court later in the year.
