In a scene out rivalling the world’s worst logging, a single-rider log from a downed giant native tree was trucked out of the Florentine Valley today. Bob Brown described the state and federal government-authorised destruction of the euclyptus regnans as “globally shameful”.
“Just days ago this wonder of nature, centuries old but still unimaginable strong and youthful, was alive and a natural wonder. Today the tree’s death is a national disgrace: it was publicly subsidised and entirely unnecessary. Despite what we see on that truck, most of the tree remains on the forest floor and will be incinerated by Forestry Tasmania, putting tonnes of carbon dioxide into the air. And with it has gone the birds, mammals and other wildlife which for centuries have lived in and around that tree. It’s destruction is despicable official vandalism,” Bob Brown said today.
“I will join others in going to the forest tomorrow to see how we can help stop this slaughter which aims at felling more giants in the days ahead. This is in the same valley in which El Grande, the biggest known tree in the Southern Hemisphere, was burnt to death by Tasmania’s forest authorities in 2003. This week’s national Labor conference should put an end to such deeply unpopular forest destruction, just as Malcolm Fraser ended whaling in 1978,” Brown said.
