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In recent weeks, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment gave the green light to logging untouched Otways forests such as Rileys Ridge and the Cumberland River valley. Protesters in these areas have also been threatened.
The non-violent protesters in East Gippsland that have been attacked
simply seek to prevent the destruction that logging, mostly for
woodchips for which there is now no market, is wreaking on our rapidly
diminishing old growth forests.
In the face of all this, Minister Garbutt clings to the ridiculous notion that the Regional Forest Agreements have provided a good outcome for both native forests and rural employment. Nothing could be further from the truth. No-one benefits from the current farcical "agreements" except for a handful of large companies. Victorians continue to lose their forests, and the relatively few jobs involved will disappear as rapidly as the forests.
What now appears to be strategic campaign of vigilante violence against forest protesters must cease - it threatens the basic democracy and harmony of our society.
The Victorian Premier, Steve Bracks, must act immediately to ensure
the rapidly escalating violence in Victoria's forests is stopped.
He must commission an urgent review of the disastrous policies that are
guiding the destruction of our forests, and ruining the potential to create
long term jobs in growth areas such as tourism.
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