In Hobart, Australia, environmentalists are determined to continue throughout the summer tourist season a campaign to highlight the threat -- by logging -- to the world's tallest hardwood trees in the forests of the Styx Valley, Tasmania. The campaign kicked off with a "tree-sit" on Wednesday, November 12, 2003. On that day, activists of Greenpeace and the Wilderness Society -- an Australia-based advocacy organisation -- made a platform 65 metres above ground level on a giant tree due to be logged
Tree-sit Hobart Australia
In Hobart, Australia, environmentalists are determined to continue throughout the summer tourist season a campaign to highlight the threat -- by logging -- to the world's tallest hardwood trees in the forests of the Styx Valley, Tasmania. The campaign kicked off with a "tree-sit" on Wednesday, November 12, 2003. On that day, activists of Greenpeace and the Wilderness Society -- an Australia-based advocacy organisation -- made a platform 65 metres above ground level on a giant tree due to be logged. They called it a "Global Rescue Station" from where they could keep watch over logging activities in coupe 13c, an area of the forest that was earmarked for felling.
Then, on November 24, 40 activists moved into coupe 4a, another area of the forest ready to be logged. Two protesters here went on another tree-sit, connecting their platform by rope to bulldozers, thus ensuring no logging could be done. A day later, tension escalated when the police declared this area as an exclusion zone. A clash was averted, and now all the protestors have left. Wilderness Society spokesperson Geoff Law says the campaign will continue. The campaigners want Australia's federal government to declare the Styx forest a national park, and thence a World Heritage site.
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