At the end of a massive day, our tree-sitter remains perched on their platform stopping the logging! Some big actions today, Kinglake Friends of the Forest Inc walk-in, lock ons at Big Pat’s Creek by Protect Warburton Ranges, protests in the city at Dan Andrews office, and an epic result coming from the Friends of Leadbeater’s Possum Inc. VS. VicForests case.
The court has ruled that the state-owned logging agency aren’t protecting threatened species, and as result of the case over 40 coupes have been permanently protected. This is from the summary;
“The Court has found that in planning and conducting its forestry operations and in the choice of which native forest should be logged, and how it should be logged, VicForests’ consideration and application of management options pays insufficient regard to matters such as the high quality of the habitat for the Greater Glider in the impugned coupes, the detections of Greater Gliders in fact using and occupying the forest in and around those coupes and the effects of wildfire on Greater Glider habitat in reserves and national parks.”
An amazing result, and congratulation to all those who have been involved, and also in the actions today. Threatened species are still being logged despite serious decline from logging and bushfires, and VicForests could be breaching their obligations here under the exemptions to national environment law. This cannot continue.
But for now, these forests in Baw Baw on Gunnai country, are safe.
Elders and Traditional Owners are speaking up against the handing over of Traditional Country, Totems, Stories and Cultural Values to logging agencies without consent.
“We as the First People belonging to this country have never given consent for the destruction and decimation of our land,” said Lidia Thorpe, Gunnai / Gunditjmara woman.
“Our Totems, Songlines and cultural identity are intrinsically linked with the bush and all living things within it.”
“Governments have orchestrated and manufactured consent from corporations breaching the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples, article 19, which states ‘States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them” said Lidia Thorpe.
