farmdoc's blog post number 352

I’ve previously written [1,2] of the environment group Still Wild Still Threatened, and its non-violent direct action campaign to halt the logging of old growth forest in southern Tasmania’s Upper Florentine Valley. I’ve never been to the Florentine Valley, but from the photographs I’ve seen, its forests are ancient and spectacular. So much so that earlier this year our friend Miff was arrested and charged for being inside Forestry Tasmania’s Upper Florentine Valley ‘exclusion zone’. Last Sunday the biennial Ten Days on the Island arts festival ended. To coincide with this year’s Ten Days, an art exhibition, ‘Shadows in the Forest – The Art of Exclusion’ was set up inside the same exclusion zone. All of which introduces today’s Farmdoc’s Blog topic: last Saturday Sue Lester and Greg Smith brought me a new wombat. Her name’ s Florence (Flo for short) because she’s from the Florentine Valley where her mum was killed by a vehicle (I don’t know if it was a logging vehicle). When she was found, Flo weighed 215 grams. Now she’s a robust 15kg – probably the biggest/heaviest wombat I’ve received – so all going well, I aim to release her in 4-5 weeks time. The pen has rehabilitated well since 28 February when I released Otis. Florence is the tenth wombat – sixth girl – it’s been my privilege to have here. Yo, Flo.

farmdoc's blog post number 265

Last 25 October I wrote of a southern Tasmanian forest protest by the group Still Wild Still Threatened [SWST]. Further to the same protest, last 7 November I wrote of Thoreau, Gandhi, King, and the sanctity of civil disobedience and non-violent direct action. Last 16 December, in response to the Rudd government’s pathetic 5% greenhouse gas reduction target, 15 SWST activists shut down Gunns’ Triabunna woodchip mill for over seven hours to highlight the link between old growth forest logging and climate change. The seven activists who attached themselves to a conveyor and other machinery were arrested and charged with trespass. The next day, Tasmanian government minister Llewellyn pathetically labelled the activists ‘terrorists’. The activists called on the minister for an apology which they never received. Now Gunns, that pathetic specimen of corporate thuggery, has sued 13 of the 15 SWST activists for damages (I don’t know what happened to the other two), and sought an injunction to prevent the defendants entering its property again. Tasmania Police, that pathetic specimen of colonial law enforcement, gave to Gunns the names of all the SWST people who took part in the Triabunna action – including, stone the crows, those who were neither charged nor arrested. No question this breaches the privacy, and infringes the rights, of citizens. Welcome to Tasmania, people. Stay tuned – this story ain’t finished yet.

farmdoc's blog post number 201

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) (pictured), one of my heroes, was an American philosopher and writer. His writings, especially those on non-violent resistance to government injustice, inspired Tolstoy, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. In the 1830s and 1840s, to protest the slavery that the government condoned, Thoreau refused to pay the government’s annual poll tax. In 1841 he was jailed for his refusal. In his essay Civil Disobedience, published in 1849,Thoreau contended that each person owes a greater duty to his own conscience and beliefs than to the government. Thus he encouraged people to non-violently disobey laws they believed unjust. Non-violent civil disobedience is a legitimate form of protest in civil society – aiming at least to bear witness to the abuse of government power, and at best to reduce that power by changing its enabling legislation. We used it effectively in Save Albert Park’s campaign. This week Still Wild Still Threatened signalled a willingness to abandon its protest if all logging in the Upper Florentine Valley ended. The Tasmanian Government sanctimoniously replied that it doesn’t deal with people who break the law. The relevant law – which excludes the public from public forests that are being trashed – is a diabolical law. So if the government won’t change that law then, in the spirit of Thoreau, the People must resist the law and then change the government.

farmdoc's blog post number 188

There are moments in my life, as I’m sure there are in yours, which have long-term and even permanent ramifications. For example notification of a blood test result, a job application, a publisher’s response to a submitted manuscript. You open an envelope or an email, answer the telephone, or meet someone face-to-face, and within a microsecond information you receive determines your future. For years. Decades. I call these ‘pivot points’, and I’m always conscious when I encounter one in my life, or when I see Sweetheart Vivienne or one of our darlings come to one. They can happen to individuals, families, subcultures, societies, and even populations. Sometimes you see them coming, and sometimes you don’t recognise them until afterwards. Last Tuesday in southern Tasmania logging thugs (aka forestry workers), kicked a non-violent protester in the head, and sledge-hammered a vehicle placed by protesters to block a logging road. Footage of it is here. I’ll be surprised if watching it doesn’t set your pulse racing. The activists must’ve been terrified. I was, just viewing the footage. In our society there’s no excuse for such violence. None. It’s happened before and little’s come of it. The Tasmania Police are investigating. I’m not confident of charges let alone jail sentences. This is Tasmania. But this outrage may be a societal pivot point. It’s unlikely but not impossible. Here’s hoping.