70 Trees fall without an impact study (Hypocritical Government sanctioned clearing continues)
69 Logging clash averted as police step in (Bannockburn remnant forest destroyed)
68 Compensation row delays deal on forests (RFAs in Tasmania delayed - the process is a farce)
67 Threats claimed in forest dispute (unsubtantiated; more facts please)
66 See the wood for the trees (failure of Kennett Government to protect forests)
65 Amcor Plant Closure and the failure of RFAs (Amcor cares nothing for jobs)
64 Groups launch forests petition (find it, sign it, spread it !)
63 And what a performance ! (Woodchips in drinks at Amcor Paper Awards)
62 Gippsland gives Premier grilling on local concern (Jeff refuses to deal with the real issues associated with Gippland woodchipping)
61 Thornbury Forests fall to chips unlimited (onslaught of woodchipping - licences to destroy, AHC silent, SPOT ON ! )
60 The paper trail (Goolengook destruction, why the hypocrisy ?)
59 Classify and destroy (Goolengook being destroyed)
58 Elegy in glass (destruction of East Gippsland forests)
57 Not amicable (Amcor, Strzeleckis & Broadford closure)
56 Some evidence would be nice (stupid questions, write in with some facts)
55 Timber industry is subsidised (yes it is, but what do we do about it ?)
54 Wilderness going up in smoke (box ironbark forests used for firewood)
53 Singer faces protest (Paul Kelly concert blockaded by loggers)
52 Protests labelled vandalism (Unsubstantiated claims of sabotage etc at Goolengook)
51
In Gippsland's forests it is a daily battle of wit and tactics (Goolengook
blocade)
I wish to draw public attention to the extraordinary proceedings of Barwon Water at Bannockburn, and the failure of the minister concerned, Mrs Tehan, to intervene. Although alternative sites are available, Barwon Water is constructing sewerage ponds in a stand of yellow gums which are a critical habitat for local wildlife. This is contrary to its own stated policy that "the environment must be protected", and it appears that no environmental impact study has been carried out.
Work began some days ago and 130 gums were felled. Because of concerns expressed by the Bannockburn Yellow Gum Action Group, a stay was granted, but on Monday this understanding was breached and work recommenced without notice. It must be a matter of concern to all that there seems to be no automatic evaluation of such proposals, no proper machinery for assessing emergency situations which arise as a result, and a lack of openness in the actions of the authorities.
Police yesterday intervened between loggers and protesters in the continuing controversy, over the clearance of bushland, at Bannockburn. About 8.5 hectares of yellowgum forest has been cleared to make way for the construction of the Bannockburn sewerage scheme, but some locals are concerned that this bushland is one of the last stands of virgin bush in the area.
About 50 protesters attempted to disrupt clearing of the area, but a strong police presence prevented direct conflict with the loggers and no one was arrested. The Opposition's environment spokeswoman, Ms Sherryl Garbutt, said yellowgum trees had been recently listed as rare and threatened in Victoria and the bush should have been protected by the State Government. "Instead of standing up for; the environment, Mrs Tehan has sat on her hands and let Barwon Water clear the lot, she said.
The cleared area was part of a forest that contained important hollow-bearing trees and habitat for the swift parrot and regent honeyeater, which were protected under the State Government's Flora and Fauna Guarantee legislation, Ms Garbutt said. However, a State Government spokesman said Ms Garbutt was wrong and the Government's scientific advisory committee had recommended that this species of yellowgum should not be protected under Flora and Fauna Guarantee legislation because it was well represented in the state's protected bushland.
Furthermore, the Government had reviewed the circumstances under which a clearing permit was granted and had found no reason the clearing should be prevented, the spokesman said. "There is definitely not a case for a moratorium on clearing there because this type of yellowgum is well represented" the spokesman said.
A spokesman for Barwon Water said the cleared area was: being cleaned up yesterday, in preparation for the construction of the treatment plant and lagoons. They are due to be completed by the middle of next year. The $2.92 million project would connect sewerage to 3431 properties, eliminating serious pollution problems caused by the present septic system, the spokesman said.
Police yesterday intervened between loggers and protesters in the continuing controversy, over the clearance of bushland, at Bannockburn. About 8.5 hectares of yellowgum forest has been cleared to make way for the construction of the Bannockburn sewerage scheme, but some locals are concerned that this bushland is one of the last stands of virgin bush in the area.
About 50 protesters attempted to disrupt clearing of the area, but a strong police presence prevented direct conflict with the loggers and no one was arrested. The Opposition's environment spokeswoman, Ms Sherryl Garbutt, said yellowgum trees had been recently listed as rare and threatened in Victoria and the bush should have been protected by the State Government. "Instead of standing up for; the environment, Mrs Tehan has sat on her hands and let Barwon Water clear the lot, she said.
The cleared area was part of a forest that contained important hollow-bearing trees and habitat for the swift parrot and regent honeyeater, which were protected under the State Government's Flora and Fauna Guarantee legislation, Ms Garbutt said. However, a State Government spokesman said Ms Garbutt was wrong and the Government's scientific advisory committee had recommended that this species of yellowgum should not be protected under Flora and Fauna Guarantee legislation because it was well represented in the state's protected bushland.
Furthermore, the Government had reviewed the circumstances under which a clearing permit was granted and had found no reason the clearing should be prevented, the spokesman said. "There is definitely not a case for a moratorium on clearing there because this type of yellowgum is well represented" the spokesman said.
A spokesman for Barwon Water said the cleared area was: being cleaned up yesterday, in preparation for the construction of the treatment plant and lagoons. They are due to be completed by the middle of next year. The $2.92 million project would connect sewerage to 3431 properties, eliminating serious pollution problems caused by the present septic system, the spokesman said.
Argument over federal compensation of about $100 million is delaying the signing of the first Statewide regional forests agreement between the Howard Government and Tasmania. Now two months behind schedule, the RFA - which was hoped to bring peace to the Island's forests after more man a decade of dispute - has became snarled in financial issues.
The Forest Industry Association of Tasmania (FIAT) said costly investment depended on the outcome. It called on the Prime Minister Mr John Howard, to honour his promise of a fortnight ago to make a solution a high priority.
But the Australian Conservation foundation said it was not in a hurry for the impasse to be broken if a delay could ensure a better conservation outcome. Under negotiation since it began under the Keating Government, the Tasmanian RFA is intended to decide for at least 20 years the boundaries for production end conservation in a state that is both Australia's biggest forest products exporter and site of World Heritage quality forests.
The Premier, Mr Tony Rundle, said yesterday that obstacles over compensation to his Government and private landowners were yet to be resolved. He said the Commonwealth had offered half what tile state needed to bring about a transition. An informed source said the state was looking for $100 million or more, but the Federal Government had not moved beyond $45 million, including $20 million redirected from the National Heritage Fund.
Mr Rundle intends to meet Mr Howard in Canberra tomorrow to discuss the importance of getting the agreement signed and in place as soon as possible. But a spokesman for Mr Howard said the visit was regarded as a normal courtesy call and there were no specific plans for progress on the RFA.
The Federal Opposition's environment spokesman, Mr Duncan Kerr, blamed infighting between the Environment Minister, Senator Robert Hill, and the Resources Minister, Senator Warwick Farer, for the delay. FIAT's chief executive, Mr Ian Whyte, said it was becoming critical for Mr Howard to keep to an undertaking he made on a recent visit to Tasmania to make the RFA a priority. "This is just becoming farcical," Mr Whyte said. "The issue has been allowed to lag and it needs to be given a shake-up by the Prime Minister himself."
About 300,000 hectares of forest is believed to be earmarked for preservation in the draft RFA. Among the recommendations are the World Heritage evaluation of at least 200,000 hectares fringing the western wilderness and the creation of a rainforest national park in the north-east Tarkine region.
Two Government workers have been pulled out of the Goolengook forest in East Gippsland because of concerns for their safety in the controversy over logging in the wilderness area. The Department of Natural Resources and Environment's Gippsland regional manager, Mr Garry Squires, said yesterday that the workers had been physically threatened recently by anti-logging protesters and had been withdrawn from the area.
"The department is now extremely concerned for the safety of its employees who are going about the legitimate work of supervising timber harvesting and maintaining roads," Mr Squires said. The protesters attacked the claims as false and challenged the department to identify those involved so that a defamation action against the department could proceed. "There's nothing there that could have been seen as a threat. There was a verbal exchange, but absolutely no knives, hammers, machetes or threats of violence," a spokeswoman for the Concerned Residents of East Gippsland, Ms Jill Redwood, said yesterday.
She accused the department of spreading false! information to discredit protesters, who had been peaceful but tenacious in trying to protect the forest. Police had been called in to investigate the claims but neither they nor the department could elaborate on the nature of the threats, Mr Squires said. He said protests had hampered logging operations since clearing began on World Environment Day, 5 June but this was the first time physical threats had been made.
The Goolengook area was remote bushland and the department was not prepared to put its staff at risk, Mr Squires said. Logging in the area was continuing and, with more than 1000 hectares available for harvesting in the area, clear-felling would continue for tile foreseeable future. "Logging is delayed for about three to four hours each day and they're proceeding at a much reduced rate. What we don't like is that really the protesters have got a problem with, if you like, Government decisions but they're targeting the working man," Mr Squires said.
So far 145 people have been arrested for hindering logging operations and 138 are to appear in Orbost Magistrates Court tomorrow. Ms Redwood said the department's press release was timed to coincide with the court appearances to try to counteract positive publicity for the protesters.
Ms Redwood said protesters were concerned that logging was continuing in Goolengook, despite yesterday's announcement that the tiger quoll had been recognised as an endangered animal and the Goolengook area was an acknowledged quoll habitat.
If Mrs Tehan cannot see that the old-growth forests of East Gippsland should not be logged, she shouldn't be Environment Minister. And, if no one in the Government can see it, the position ought be scrapped, to stop this farce of pretending to care for the environment when they don't.
The recent announcement of the closure of Amcor's 100 year old Broadford paper recycling plant will result in the loss of 120 direct jobs. The livelihood of up to 150 local shopkeepers is also indirectly threatened. One has to seriously question Amcor's commitment to providing jobs for Australians.
Meanwhile, Amcor is currently focussed on environmentally damaging activities such as:
Meanwhile, old-growth forest is being obliterated East Gippsland, sanctioned
by the RFA, despite valiant efforts at Goolengook to protect it from the
onslaught of chainsaws and bulldozers. A Royal Commission is urgently needed
to sort out the ongoing economic and environmental disaster of industrial
forestry native forests, before there is nothing left outside National
Parks to argue about.
An environmental group yesterday launched a forest protection petition, which it hoped would be signed by more than a million Australians. Mr Franklin Scarf, a spokesman for the Earth Repair Foundation, said the group wanted it to become Australia's most signed petition. A Friends of the Earth spokesman, Mr Tom McLoughlin, said the petition,. was supported by more than 70 ethnic, religious, community, union, business, environment and political organisations. It calls on the Federal Government to legislate to stop all logging and. woodchipping activities in high conservation value native. forests.
If anyone was perplexed as to why I was putting woodchips in peoples' drinks at the Amcor Paper Awards at the Arts Centre on Thursday night, here's the explanation.
It was Performance Art symbolising the damage to our drinking water when Amcor clearfells for woodchips in Melbourne's catchment.
The young man with long hair and a leather jacket who was thrown out by Amcor's security was actually an art critic invited to review the exhibition!
The Age, Tuesday 5 August 1997, page A4
The Premier, Mr Jeff Kennett, yesterday faced a barrage of questions from Mallacoota residents on the first day of his tour of East Gippsland. About 150 people gathered at a public meeting at a local council centre and bombarded Mr Kennett with questions on a range of issues including the price of fuel, logging in nearby forests, an increase in rates and fear of deterioration of the local water catchment area.
But earlier in the day, shortly after his plane landed at the local airport, Mr Kennett lost his temper with journalists and camera crews who insisted on filming him playing golf at Mallacoota golf course. Mr Kennett lashed out, swearing at a photographer and telling one journalist: "You get taken around the world, treated like kings..." Presumably he was referring to his recent trip to Europe, where a media contingent followed him.
But Mr Kennett appeared to be in good spirits late last night, despite a dozen environmental protesters greeting him at a civic reception where he met the Mayor, Cr Brenda Murray. The protesters called on Mr Kennett to stop logging at Goolengook near Orbost. "Mr Kennett and Mr Howard in signing the regional forest agreement for East Gippsland have signed away local jobs and communities," said one protester, Ms Michelle Van Gerrevink.
Mr Kennett told the crowd the purpose of his trip was to meet people, listen to their concerns and take on board constructive criticism. "I'll take questions, answers and abuse, whatever comes naturally," he said.
One woman who said she was concerned loggers were logging the water catchment area drew applause and loud cheers. "We can't have tourists if we don't have water," someone shouted from the crowd. Mr Kennett said he would look into the matter.
Mallacoota has a population of about 1140, and unemployment in Gippsland is 12.4 per cent, compared to 9.1 per cent a year ago. Mr Kennett will spend two more days in Gippsland talking to local people.
The Age (letter) 4/8/97
For an answer to your question as to why Goolengook Forest is being logged, John Fraser, Access Age, 1/8) you need look no further than the export licences for woodchips from East Gippsland native forests for 1997 and onwards.
The Regional Forest Agreement, signed by Mr Kennett and Mr Howard in February this year, sanctions the most massive onslaught on the forests of East Gippsland ever. The litany reads as follows:
* Harris Daishowa -- unlimited tonnes until 2017;
* T J Andrews Sawmills -- unlimited tonnes until 2017;
* Midway Wood Products -- unlimited tonnes until 2017;
* Misal Technologies -- unlimited tonnes until 2017;
* Orbost Logging and Cartage -unlimited tonnes until 2017.
As well as these "unlimited" licences there are licences for specified amounts such as 400,000 tonnes per year until 1999 for companies such as Harris Daishowa.
The sooty owl and tiger quoll inhabited rainforests of Goolengook are not alone in facing destruction but tragically, they are joined by the hauntingly beautiful Hensleigh Creek and the irreplaceable and varied forests of the Broddribb and Yalmy catchments.
Your question, Mr Fraser, begs another: why is the Australian Heritage
Commission so silent in the face of such destruction of nationally significant
forests in East Gippsland ?
An area 17-and-a-half times the size of the MCG, full of 400-year-old trees and rainforest that has survived the Ice Age has been clearfelled under Jeff Kennett's and Marie Tehan's signatures. Over 2500 signatures and 140 arrests have called for Goolengook to be saved. A hypocritical democracy.
The Government's own scientists have described Goolengook as "the best opportunity in Victoria for the preservation of warm temperate rainforest, cool temperate rainforest, and overlap rainforest" (Ecological Survey Report, No. 35). Why then is the Government allowing this area to be logged?
There's something quite sick about celebrating the beauty of rainforest by preserving a piece in the centrepiece of Federation Square, while shamelessly mowing down the magnificent primordial forests of East Gippsland.
Amcor woodchipping our central highlands forests. Planning to clearfell 1995 hectares of koala habitat in the Strzeleckis, contrary to the recommendations of an independently appointed panel. Now turning 120 of its Broadford mill workers on to the street (The Age, 24/7). A most unfriendly company.
I take issue with Jill Redwood's claim "industry requires high levels of subsidisation" referring to the forest products industries (The Age, 14/7). Where is it, Jill? How does this alleged subsidy "mostly benefit the woodchip sector" which is dependent, in East Gippsland, on 174,000 cubic metres of sawlog production?
Where is the evidence, Jill? Why not try stating facts, not demonstrably untrue statements such as this? The state forests division of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, which I queried on this matter, has published a profit of $7.3 million for 1995/96 - after all costs of utilising and renewing forests and all their fauna, flora and other values, as well as protecting them from fire, insects, fungi etc. I also notice her totally inaccurate statement about a 20 cents per tonne charge - quite incompatible with the profits achieved.
A few points to note regarding woodchipping in East Gippsland:
* Dr Bain, director of the National Association of Forest Industries (NAFl) admitted that 80-90 per cent of logs taken from East Gippsland forests were woodchipped; (B Traill, 1995);
* A report by the Victorian auditor-general found that the State Government was making a net loss from timber operations in native forests. Dr Dragun, a Latrobe University economist, calculated that the State Government subsidises the native timber industry by $50 million annually, and that the Department of Natural Resources and Environment had understated royalties by defining some costs as revenue. (Traill, 1995) Who loses? The taxpayer
* The Government can cut 22,000 jobs from Telstra through privatisation to supposedly fund environmental programs but are Unwilling to find a handful of the 550 or so people working directly or indirectly in logging in East Gippsland alternative employment to save old-growth temperate rainforest (Commonwealth Resource Assessment, 1996)
* Clearfelling for woodchips is a highly mechanised, low labor-intense and low value-added industry and multinationals such as Daishowa, with low overheads, reap massive profits.
Victorian .National Parks Association (letter) The Age, 24/7/97
Virginia Trioli (The Age, 21/7) is right to raise the issues of clearfelling and woodchipping of oldgrowth forests at Goolengook. However, what is rarely recognised is that the amount of woodchips extracted from Victoria's native forests is eclipsed by firewood extraction in both its scale and its environmental effects.
One in five Melbourne households and up to half of rural Victorian households use firewood. This accounts for between 1.5 million and 2.5 million tonnes of firewood each year. With woodchip production at around one million tonnes, firewood extraction is one of the greatest threats to Victoria's native forests.
Half of the firewood extracted from Victorian state forests comes from our most threatened forest type, box-ironbark forests -home to swift parrots, squirrel gliders and many other threatened species. Despite the threat to box-iron bark forests from gold mining, firewood cutting and other extractive industries, the State Government has withheld a major report on the conservation of box-iron bark forests, scheduled for release last May by the (now abolished) Land Conservation Council.
We are right to be concerned about the initial clearing of virgin forests in East Gippsland. What we are seeing in northern Victoria, however, is the tail end of forest degradation which began in the 1840s and 50s.
Timber workers are planning to Picket the Melbourne concerts of Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly. Kelly last month came out in support of anti-logging protests 1 in East Gippsland. Police have arrested 185 people who tried to stop timber felling in the Goolengook forest outside Orbost. Union spokesman Michael O'Connor said the union was directing the action at Kelly because he "failed to consult with union members over his views" on forests. "His views will impact on our members' livelihoods," M' O'Connor said. "He should at least have the decency to hear the workers' side of the argument." Midnight Oil lead singer Peter Garrett, jazz musician Vince Jones and Greens Senator Bob Brown have all added their voices to the protest.
Forest authorities have accused anti-logging protesters of sabotage, vandalism and illegally cutting down trees. Since June, police have arrested about 135 East Gippsland protesters who want logging stopped in remote Goolengook, outside Orbost. Their protests include blocking roads by sitting atop tripods built from thin trees and locking themselves to machinery. The Department of Natural Resources and Environment's Garry Squires yesterday alleged protesters were illegally cutting young regrowth trees to build the tripods and tyres had been let down on machinery.
In the biting cold before dawn, a man sits about six metres up a primitive tripod made of three springy saplings. The bases of the thin trunks are jammed in the muddy ground, the apex lashed with rope. The structure has been hurriedly put together in the dark over a little wooden bridge on the logging road that leads to the top of the Goolengook State Forest and logging area No 513.10.
As long as Pete, an acupuncture student at Victoria University, can cling koala-like to his perch, no logging trucks will be able to get through. The loggers will have to call the police, the police will have to call for a cherrypicker to drive 90 kilometres from Orbost to lift him off. The police will then arrest Pete and send the logging trucks through, but they will have been delayed by a few hours. Below, Pete's fellow protesters are warning him of the police's gambits. "No matter what they tell you, don't believe them," says Dingo. Every time Pete moves, the whole structure bounces and sways. He has been promised a bath and hot chips in town once he's bailed. It's worth getting arrested just for the hot bath, groans someone. Pete, who will be arrest number 129, says little. He's shivering with cold. Someone passes up a blanket.
This is the fourth day of the sixth week of the Goolengook anti-logging protest. Each day a shifting band of protesters rises before dawn and executes non-violent but intensely irritating and sometimes dangerous sabotages to slow the logging. They lock themselves on to tractors with thumb-locks and steel pipes. The police have to use angle grinders to cut them out. Some protesters have been here since February, camping rough and fighting for forest that they describe as sacred and beautiful. The dense, breathtaking forest is in the heart of the towering East Gippsland wilderness.
Just a little further up the road is the logging. Cara, 17, and Helen, 20, take us there. On the way you pass forest that is overpoweringly dense, with wet gullies filled with tree ferns three times your height, and ?'Tarzan-like jungles of creeping vines and whooping birds. But at the logging site what was once impressive and rolling forest looks almost humiliated. Clear felling has stripped the hillsides bare. Only hollow trees and those deemed scrap are left, then the area is torched to encourage regrowth. It looks like the aftermath of a war.
Helen is sitting on one of the burnt logs, her expression one of sadness, fighting disgust. She came from Scotland, an environmentalist from a young age due to her parents. She went first to blockades in the Tasmanian wilderness, then heard about Goolengook. "I was only going to stay a few weeks but I just couldn't leave. This is the forest that after 20 years of studies, negotiation and public consultation the State and Federal Governments have agreed can withstand some clear-fell logging. The old growth trees in the area - more than 300 to 400 years old - are a goldmine for loggers. Half of East Gippsland is set aside in the National Reserve System, but 30,000 hectares, 14 per cent of the region, can be logged. The trees are messmate, mountain ash and grey gums. Of that, 70 per cent, says the State Government, will be sawn into planks for domestic building. The rest will be woodchipped and exported.
The area, or coupe, that has inspired this fight is 32 hectares - that's seventeen-and-a-half times the size of the MCG arena. There are six more coupes of similar size earmarked for this year's harvest. The protesters say they will stay until the end. The loggers aren't giving in either. Each morning they greet each other with new tactics, every night they try to psyche each other out with raids and mind games. The delays are costing the contract logger thousands of dollars, and police find themselves up the mountain arresting protesters every day. But both sides treat each other with a bonhomie usually found among opposing footballers in a pub after a match. It's a bewildering game.
Camp is a few muddy metres down the Bee Tree Track off the main logging road. It looks like a health food co-op transplanted to the forest. A massive tepee of saplings with a tarpaulin wound around them Is the main sleeping area. Hand-painted protest banners are flung over the top. The mess and the main fire are under a canvas suspended between trees. Cans of water are stacked next to a huge pot of soaking chick peas. Many protesters are unemployed, some are students. They all have sore, red eyes and cracked lips. Many have hacking coughs. They maintain that nobody is in charge, nobody gives orders, but a few strong personalities emerge.
Flinny, in his 40s, is one, a veteran of such campaigns. He has been doing this since the Franklin, and this time he is videotaping each protest for evidence, he says. Evidence of what? "That we were here." The light quickly fades. When night falls it will be comprehensively dark. You can still hear the buzz of chainsaws further up the mountain as the loggers work the coupe. Around the fire, the blokes cook up the chick peas and plan the action that will see Pete up a tripod before dawn. More people -they call them "arrestables" - arrive with supplies from Orbost and a treat for the non-vegetarians: a large black rabbit accidentally run down on the road. They set to gutting and skinning the animal with a pocket knife. "We eat road-kill," says Cara. "It's a shame to waste it."
The talk turns to winning and losing, flexible terms because while the loggers are carting five to seven truck loads of logs a day out of the forest, Flinny insists that their campaign is having an effect, and they're getting on well with police too. "But that's because we're losing!" cries one of the women. The political and environmental passion is certainly real, but the lifestyle choice seems just as important to the protesters. They hate the idea of living in the city. They see direct action as far more important than lobbying, and when someone talks of changing the system by working from the inside, Flinny shifts uncomfortably. He acknowledges that it was useful when the Greens leader, Senator Bob Brown, was recently arrested at the logging site, but adds: "you get run down by the Wilderness Society all coming through here and we get treated like shit."
The rain that has been quietly pattering for an hour or so has eased, and fast clouds are moving across the night sky. If it's clear, there'll be logging in the morning and the group has to decide quickly what their response will be. By 5am their response is already made. It is shockingly cold. So cold you want to burst out laughing at the absurdity of being awake in it. The sun won't be up for a few hours but Pete is up the tripod, which was erected at 3am. Now that the road is blocked we can get into the coupe, which is half an hour up an almost impassable road at the peak of a hill.
The sight is awful. Virgin old growth forest on one side, torn and scarrified land on the other. Trees more than 60 metres high are gone and lie stripped and bleeding red sap. Birds hop from stump to stump. They appear bewildered. A few trees are left standing - one is the grey gum that the Everest mountaineer Brigitte Muir climbed as a protest. The banner she attached "Let this forest for ever rest", flutters in the rising mist. Phil, 26 and a former croupier at the Crown casino, says: "A lot of this wood will be used as framing for housing - now, surely we can think of another way of building houses without using 400-year-old trees?"
Back at the tripod, the loggers turn up. They skid to a halt in front of the bridge. One truck narrowly avoids collecting Pete and almost lands in the creek. The loggers groan and laugh as they greet the protesters. They call for the police, who soon arrive: it's Sergeant Terry Bradford from Orbost. You'd be forgiven for thinking he was the protesters' best mate. "How are we all today?" he sings out as he walks towards the trembling Pete. "Are you gonna come down now or what?" No response. Flinny has the video out filming and Sergeant Bradford smiles. He says that if Pete doesn't come down he'll be charged with obstruction and, because of the truck that skidded off the road, reckless conduct likely to cause injury. He radios for a crane.
But the loggers have found a flaw in the blockade. There is a gap between the legs of the tripod that is just big enough to let a four-wheel-drive through. They inch through and head up to the coupe to recommence sawing. There'll be no delay after all. Flinny scratches his beard. "Hmmmm - bit of a design fault, that." For the next hour or so the loggers, police and protesters trade friendly insults. It's a game all right. Eventually the crane arrives. A basket containing two police is slowly swung up to Pete. He clambers in almost gratefully and is led to a car. The tripod is bulldozed, chainsawed into short lengths and thrown into the river. The police confiscate the rope. Jenny asks Sergeant Bradford if he'll bring up some tofu from Orbost if she can persuade one of the shops to stock it. The sergeant, still all smiles, laughs her off.The scene is like that Warner Brothers cartoon of Sam and Ralph, the sheepdog and the coyote who are all mates as they arrive for work to beat the hell out of each other until the day is over and they're mates again. The sergeant walks up to Dingo with his hand extended. "That was well organised today, captain. Well done!" Dingo grins as the sergeant walks away, calling: "Have a good day. See you tomorrow."