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Five conservationists were taken to hospital on Sunday evening after loggers and their families clashed with protesters blockading the Middle Spur block, or coupe, in the catchment. The loggers went to the coupe to retrieve equipment left on site when the blockade began.
The confrontation followed last Friday's signing of contentious 20-year regional forest agreements, which remove federal controls on woodchip exports. It is the latest in a series of violent and other incidents in the Otways and East Gippsland, including power being cut to Apollo Bay.
A spokeswoman for the Environment and Conservation Minister, Ms Sherryl Garbutt, said the Middle Spur block could be legally logged under the forest agreement for western Victoria. She said Ms Garbutt would hold a meeting of relevant groups this week to draw up a protocol for managing forest protests and provide an alternative "mechanism" for resolving disputes, such as professional mediation. Ms Garbutt had also discussed the police presence in the Otways with the Police Minister following allegations that officers took three hours at the weekend to arrive on the scene.
The acting Mayor of Geelong, Councillor Rob Binnie, said the city would continue to push for the suspension of clearfelling in water catchments during a study of the impact of logging on water quality and quantity. The study was promised on Friday.
Mr Greg Hocking, the lessee of the Athenaeum Theatre and co-convenor of the Wye River Residents Action Group, which equipped the protesters with a satellite phone, said the violence had hardened public opinion against logging.
He said the Government was to blame for the incident because the Department of Natural Resources and Environment had sent crews into an area known to be contentious. "The department has a lot to answer for and the minister has to get control of it," he said.
The executive director of the Victorian Association of Forest Industries, Mr Graeme Gooding, deplored the violence. He said he did not know "who was harassing who" but he could understand how workers got fed up with losing income when coupes were blockaded.
The Wilderness Society's campaign coordinator, Mr Gavan McFadzean, said the forest agreements were a lost opportunity for the Government "to strike a trailblazing outcome and resolve the forest debate once and for all" by bringing the parties together.
"Instead, we have seen a very dramatic reminder of what community conflict
and division in regional communities comes to when governments
show a lack of vision," he said. Mr McFadzean said the agreements
offered no substantial extra protection for endangered wildlife or water
catchments, and few opportunities for tourism development.
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