The War on Trees

A tree in the Tasmania old growth forest. (c) The Guardian

 The United States is known for it's sometimes crazy environmentalists and activists. We have people who inhabit trees, throwing paint on fur coats, and take to the streets when the planet is threatened.
But even some our most insane acts stateside aren't as crazy as the protests that the land down under saw.
Tasmania is home to some stunning and beautiful forests - it's one of the many reasons we're going to the island. It's also home to a formerly very strong logging industry, which bulldozed these forests for economic gain. So what happens when a strong logging industry is able to dismantle forests essentially unchecked? You start to see environmentalists start rolling out of the wood work (pun completely intended). The war for and against "trees" has been going on for over 30 years now.
And wow, do the battles get intense. Sometimes, loggers would come to work in the morning to see that "someone's been on site and defecated in their helmet ... or in the handles of his machine." While protesting, protesters would see "a convoy of timber workers... drunk and furious, they pelted the [protesters] with rotten eggs." In 2008, a couple workers were caught on video pulling a protester out of his car and savagely beating him.
These battles have been intense both ways. But some peace was found when large environmental groups and large logging associations met and signed a peace treaty regarding the old growth forests in 2012. Limited logging was allowed, but large swaths of forest were added to protected reserves, and many (not all) environmentalists were able to breathe easier.
That calm didn't last for too long. The newly elected Liberal government (different than the definition of liberal we use here in the States) promised to tear up the peace treaty because it killed so many jobs, which Tasmania desperately needed. So, in September, the treaty was thrown out, and many of the now protected forests were set to be opened up in the next 6 years.
Some environmentalists are actually happy about this. Jenny Webber, one of the more prominent environmentalists, felt that the legislation didn't go far enough and has continued to protest logging in any form in these old growth forests. As she said, “Peace is when you’ve got a protected forest and you don’t have this foreboding feeling that someone is about to arrive with bulldozers and trash it. That’s what I see as peace. It’s not about trying to fix some conflict.”

For more information, read: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/18/-sp-tasmanian-forestry-peace-deal

-Avi