Tripods, East Gippsland Forest Blockade circa 1992
Old growth temperate rainforest and montaine Eucalypt Forest in East Gippsland is ancient, magnificent, awe inspiring in its biological diversity and ecological complexity, and mind numbingly beautiful and humbling to behold.
While there has been, since first European settlement, moderate timber harvesting and clearing to open up farmland, widespread clearing ramped up from the 1970’s onward as our Govt decided this majestic old growth forest was best pulped and sent to Japan to make toilet paper.
I, as an environmental scientist, along with three colleagues from our State Govt Environmental Department decided to spend a weekend with the crusty protesters on the forest blockades in East Gippsland, to make up our own minds where we stood in relation to our employer, the Govt Department responsible for both environmental conservation and exploitation of forestry resources through licensing of logging coupes to private logging operators.
While initially we felt a little antagonistic to the law breaking, dreadlocked, crusties, who just seemed to be a parody of environmental protesters, within a very short time all four of us felt passionately, deeply, unequivocally, the magnificent old growth forest should not be logged, not for any reason, not now, not ever, and especially not for toilet paper.
These “Tripods” are built with rough sapling poles (dragged in from other logged areas) over the access roads into a logging coupe, one or two protesters will sit up top of the tripods, ladders removed and the idea is that the loggers, or authorities, or even police, cannot dismantle or remove the Tripods without endangering the people occupying them. And no amount of yelling or cajoling or threatening arrest and imprisonment will coax them down. It’s a waiting game, a delay tactic, overnight when no logging operations occur the occupant would be replaced by another.
It’s a gutsy, risky, desperate move, I love them for it, thank goodness they have the balls to do it. We all kept the vision front of mind when we returned to our pen pushing in the Environment and Conservation Dept.
Tripods, East Gippsland Forest Blockade circa 1992
Old growth temperate rainforest and montaine Eucalypt Forest in East Gippsland is ancient, magnificent, awe inspiring in its biological diversity and ecological complexity, and mind numbingly beautiful and humbling to behold.
While there has been, since first European settlement, moderate timber harvesting and clearing to open up farmland, widespread clearing ramped up from the 1970’s onward as our Govt decided this majestic old growth forest was best pulped and sent to Japan to make toilet paper.
I, as an environmental scientist, along with three colleagues from our State Govt Environmental Department decided to spend a weekend with the crusty protesters on the forest blockades in East Gippsland, to make up our own minds where we stood in relation to our employer, the Govt Department responsible for both environmental conservation and exploitation of forestry resources through licensing of logging coupes to private logging operators.
While initially we felt a little antagonistic to the law breaking, dreadlocked, crusties, who just seemed to be a parody of environmental protesters, within a very short time all four of us felt passionately, deeply, unequivocally, the magnificent old growth forest should not be logged, not for any reason, not now, not ever, and especially not for toilet paper.
These “Tripods” are built with rough sapling poles (dragged in from other logged areas) over the access roads into a logging coupe, one or two protesters will sit up top of the tripods, ladders removed and the idea is that the loggers, or authorities, or even police, cannot dismantle or remove the Tripods without endangering the people occupying them. And no amount of yelling or cajoling or threatening arrest and imprisonment will coax them down. It’s a waiting game, a delay tactic, overnight when no logging operations occur the occupant would be replaced by another.
It’s a gutsy, risky, desperate move, I love them for it, thank goodness they have the balls to do it. We all kept the vision front of mind when we returned to our pen pushing in the Environment and Conservation Dept.