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Green groups were stunned by today's pre-dawn raid on the forest protest, close on the heels of the Bracks government February 21 announcement it would prune the local timber industry by 43 per cent.
About 40 officers burst in on the Mt Goolengook forest blockade about 5am, where they surprised eight protesters asleep in the forest blockade building. Two protesters are understood to have been arrested.
Premier Steve Bracks denied the raid pointed to a toughening of government attitudes towards green protesters after thousands of angry timber workers descended on Parliament House last Thursday demanding action to protect their jobs.
The logging cutbacks will mean the loss of up to 1,500 jobs in timber communities.
Wilderness Society spokesman Gavan McFadzean said he believed the raid was organised to appease the forest industry. "It appears that at least to some degree, the state government has capitulated to the forest union and the woodchipping industry," he told reporters today. Mr McFadzean said forest officials told the group the police action was necessary because anger within the logging community made it unsafe for the protesters to remain in the area.
He said conservationists would hold a "mournful" vigil at state parliament at midday tomorrow to draw attention to the breakup of the blockade. "Conservationists will not allow Goolengook to be logged without a fight," he said.
Greens Senator Bob Brown, who was arrested at the Goolengook blockade in 1997, today condemned the raid.
He said the Goolengook forests had immense biological value and he had written to Premier Bracks asking him to halt any plans to log the area.
Forestry Victoria general manager Peter Rutherford said the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DNRE) required sawlogs from the Goolengook area to fulfil contracts with local sawmills. He said they would take whatever action was necessary to ensure harvesting, cartage and roading crews could work without interruption.
Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union assistant national secretary Michael O'Connor said the blockade had denied the industry up to 10,000 cubic metres of resource and the police action was long overdue. He said no other section of the community would be able to get away with constructing a blockade illegally in a forest. "If it had been anyone else or any other group they would have been dealt with years ago," he said.
A spokeswoman for the protesters, Jill Redwood, said dozens of protesters were on their way to the forest from Melbourne and hundreds more were expected by the end of the week. "I would say this is going to be the start of a big war," she said.
"It's not the end of the Goolengook protest."
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