Arrested twice in the Upper Florentine

Forestry Tasmania's destruction of the wilderness of valleys such as the Upper Florentine is an echo of the HEC's assault on the Franklin River 27 years ago.

The Franklin is part of one of the world's great temperate wilderness areas. The river carves canyons through glaciated mountains before flowing serenely through a great primeval rainforest. On these wide lower reaches, the river's banks are lined with limestone caves which provided homes for Aboriginal people during ice-age times 20,000 years ago. Here, when there were glaciers on the surrounding mountains and ice bergs not far off the sores of Tasmania's south coast, the island's original inhabitants hunted wallaby in great grasslands.

At the same time, they occupied caves in the valleys of the Florentine. Permanent snow and ice mantled the surrounding peaks of the Mt Field West, the Thumbs and Mt Mueller. Evidence of those glaciations is well preserved in the spectacular landscapes enjoyed by so many bushwalkers today. The Florentine is riddled with caves and sinkholes, being part of of one of Tasmania's greatest karst systems - the Junee-Florentine. In the 20th century, human remains dating back many thousands of years were found in one of these caves.

Despite these extraordinary values, the Florentine has been subjected to ruthless exploitation. In the 1930s, the last thylacines to be captured alive were snared in this valley. In 1950, a large chunk of the Mt Field National Park was revoked to allow the logging of towering oldgrowth forests for newsprint. The valley has now been logged from side to side and almost end to end. Amongst the remaining stands of forest, the giant tree El Grande was discovered and named in 2002. It was Australia's most massive known living thing and in 2003 it was incinerated by a Forestry Tasmanian burn-off.

Now, Forestry Tasmania is pushing new roads and logging into the pristine stands of oldgrowth in the Upper Florentine. The protest group Still Wild Still Threatened has resisted this invasion with great tenacity and resourcefulness, maintaining their non-violent philosophy in the face of brutal provocation, including the torching of some of their cars and several physical assaults.

I've attended at least three of the protests in the valley that have occurred this year and as a result have been twice charged with trespass. I'm pleading not guilty. As far as I'm concerned, it is Forestry Tasmania that is trespassing in this wilderness. This organsisation, which has shown reprehensible indifference to the natural values of the places it 'manages', frequently resorts to the same sort of spin used by the HEC and Gray Government over a quarter of a century ago to excuse their own destructive activities in the valley of the Franklin River.

Back then, the government exploitative forces claimed that only a tiny proportion (from memory, less than 2%) of the South-West wilderness would be affected by the Gordon-below-Franklin dam. Of course, that 2% related only to the area threatened with actual inundation and paid no heed to the broader impacts on wilderness not just of the impoundment but also of roads, construction villages, quarries, transmission lines and associated spread of pathogens, weeds and bushfires. And the 2% would have submerged the rapids, riverside caves and riverside Huon pines (a tree renowned for its longevity) of the lower river.

So it is today that Forestry Tasmania and the state government make the equally disingenuous claim that '90%' of the Upper Florentine will not be logged. Of course, that 90% includes all of the areas of treeless alpine plants and rocks, the buttongrass plains and the scrub. Do the anlaysis and maths and you discover that over 50% of the valley's remaining tall-eucalypt oldgrowth forests will be destroyed by logging. This includes trees that are over 65 metres in height and three metres in diameter. Over 80% of the wood extracted will be exported as woodchips - probably to papermaking companies such as Oji and Nippon in Japan.

And that comes on top of the fact that most of the rest of the valley as a whole has already been flattened by large-scale clearfelling operations and, in many cases, converted to plantations.

Those of us who have been experiencing places such as the upper Florentine for the last 20-30 years are not just appalled at this ruthless exploitation. We're also sickeningly bemused that this behaviour is tolerated in 21st-century Australia. This situation occurs because governance of Australia is dominated by Labor Governments whose preoccupations are primarily managerial. They are obsessed with the day-to-day management of media and budgets. A long-term vision involving an ethical relationship with Australia's natural environment - indeed, with the environment of Planet Earth itself -is something way outside their thinking.

This ethically sterile standpoint has affected Australia's conservation movement as well. We are seeing less and less moral leadership and more and more pragmatism. Just look at the recent performances of WWF (its 2004 sell-out of places such as the Upper Florentine in Tasmania, its backing of nuclear power, and its acceptance of the Rudd Government's pathetic emission targets) and the ACF.

Personally, I can't see the necessary changes in government policy arising from ever more pragmatic alignment of conservation advocacy with the managerialism, spin and amoral strategies of today's governments. The environment of Australia and the world actually require more of the conviction, passion, risk-taking and adventure demonstrated in the battle for the Franklin River. The young people who have stood up for valleys such as the Florentine in Tasmania are showing the necessary spirit.

Hopefully they will receive more backing and collaboration from those of us with experience of successful past campaigns.

A very generous endorsement

"When i returned to Tasmania in the early 1980s, the Franklin River dam issue was being fought by many brave and determined people. Unfortunately, at that time i could not participate and only knew what was happening through the media which hardly told the real story i had always wanted to hear.

'Just recently i was honoured to meet Geoff Law whose book 'The River Runs Free' was recently published. Geoff kindly gave me a signed copy and i became engrossed. It was written with a no-holds-barred discourse which had humour and passion and at times took on the form of a thriller, finishing all too soon.

'Geoff is now on a journey to walk Tasmania from east to west and then from north to south and to take us with him by writing a book that i would like to help sponsor so that i, too, can enjoy the Tasmanian bush that i would otherwise not see."

Jay Yulamara, March 2009

As Jay says in her very generous endorsement, I am indeed walking Tasmania from end to end. This project (which I am completing in stages) will form both a framework and springboard for a book about the battle to protect Tasmania's forests.

I will visit Tasmania's forest hot spots - past battlefields and icons, magnificent places that have been protected, destroyed or remain under threat. Places such as Farmhouse Creek, the Lemonthyme, Jackeys Marsh, the Styx Valley, the Tarkine, Blue Tier and Beech Creek.

So far i've walked from the beautiful Bay of Fires to the Mersey valley. This journey has taken me from the dry forests of the eastern granite hills across the top of the moist, rainforested Blue Tier, over the rugged tops of the north-east highlands and the exhilarating open alpine plateau of Ben Lomond, down boulder-strewn gorges on the Nile River (including some of Tasmania's finest swimming holes), across the woodlands, paddocks and long long roads of the Midlands, up and down the slopes of the spectacular Great Western Tiers three times, and along the wet, lake-studded Central Plateau.

I've walked through extraordinarily beautiful forests and seen mile upon mile of devastating logging, sometimes in seemingly remote locations such as the eastern spurs and gullies of Ben Lomond, and sometimes on the most precipitous slopes, as in the headwaters of the South Esk River near Mathinna.

Congratulations to all those who are battling to protect these wonderful forests from greedy companies such as Gunns and disingenuous, calculating, self-centred organisations such as Forestry Tasmania.

In particular, on behalf of the forests of the Blue Tier and North-East Highlands, thank you to Lesley Nicklason for her unstinting efforts to promote and protect these stunning wild places.

I've now reached the Mersey Valley. How wonderful to have experienced the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area at first-hand again. I'm really looking forward to resuming my journey with a trek through the Lemonhtyme forest and the Forth valley to Cradle Mountain. Thereafter, it will be the Tarkine.

For now, my walk is suspended. The nights are just a bit too long in June and July. But some snow in August and September when I'm back on the trail would be nice.