Current News

We are pleased to announce the release of the "Flora and Fauna Guide to the Upper Florentine Valley." This field guide by Miranda Gibson and Lily Leahy, conatins over 50 full-colour pages detailing the amazing plant and animal life you will find in the Florentine. It includes plants, trees, ferns, fungi, birds, mammals and insects.

You are invited to the book launch.
Thursday Febraury 11th, 5:30pm.
Hobart Book Shop, 22 Salamanca Square.
Featuring: Music, art exhibit and speakers.
Speakers include: Dr Peter McQuillan (Senior Lecturer, UTAS), Margaret Cashman Bails (local bird enthusiast) and Alan Lesheim (photographer).

The book will be on sale at Hobart Book Shop or order directly from stillwildstillthreatened@gmail.com
All proceeds go to the campaign to protect the Upper Florentine Valley and other threatened forests of Tasmania.

Today, Still Wild Still Threatened released research results which show Tasmania's giant eucalypts are considerably older than was previously thought. Radiocarbon dating tests carried out on wood from a Styx Valley tree reveal an age of between 500 and 600 years old.

Styx Valleytimeline

A forest campaigner taking a sample of wood from the ancient eucalypt.

Cable logging operations in old growth forest in the Styx valley have come to a halt this morning. A conservationist has climbed 20m to the top of a cable logging machine and is positioned on a platform supported by ropes connected to other logging machinery. This is preventing operation of the cable logger.

Today's Styx Valley protest will be supported in Hobart by conservationists marking and walking the boundary of cable logging coupe TN045B. The coupe boundary, taken from Forestry Tasmania's maps, has been over layered on a map of Hobart and covers most of the CBD area.

The superimposed logging coupe includes Hobart waterfront at the beginning of Davey St, the top end of Salamanca Place, stretches past St David's Park and up to the Mercure Hotel on Bathurst St. Myer and Elizabeth St Mall fall in the center of the superimposed clearfell area. CLICK ON THIS LINK TO VIEW THE HOBART CLEARFELL.

http://maps.google.com.au/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=104810591614740617850.000475536382bbb370da0&z=16

This logging coupe is just one of 290 that Premier Bartlett will log this finacial year.

Discredited Forestry Tas workerFLORENTINE ACTIVISTS' ASSAULT AND NUISANCE CHARGES DROPPED

Charges of assault and public nuisance against forest protestors in the Upper Florentine have been dropped in Hobart magistrate’s court today. Natalie Keene, 31 of Hobart, Ali Alishah, 25 of Hobart and Lee Sargent 29 of Kaoota had charges of assault and public nuisance dropped and Lauren Platzer, 23 of Kaoota, had her public nuisance charge dropped.

Principal legal officer Mark Miller made a statement in court that questioned the credibility of Forestry Tasmania employees involved in the incident as they used their cars to block a road preventing peaceful protesters from leaving the area. Mr Miller also made it clear that no peaceful protester was committing a nuisance or assault as Forestry Tasmania staff claimed.

Police line at Mother's day rally in the Upper Florentine, approxamatley 250m from the exclusion zone!Still Wild Still Threatened are calling for people who have been convicted of trespass at Camp Florentine to come foward and appeal against your convictions!!

This follows the revelation that Forestry Tasmania bungled the exclusion zone boundary and gave wrong information to the police, resulting in the trespass charge against Derwent Valley grandmother Lynda Blyth being dropped. The police have also communicated that trespass charges against others accused of trespass would also be dropped if they fall into the same category as that of Ms Blyth, who was arrested over 200 metres from the exclusion zone.

If you have been charged with trespass in the Upper Florentine you may have been arrested outside the exclusion zone, get in touch with www.stillwildstillthreatened@gmail.com and make it clear to the State Government that your actions and the entire exsistance of camp flozza has in fact been legal!

Conservationists around the nation and globe are protesting today against the continuing logging and the wood chipping of world heritage valued old growth forests of Tasmania. 

Banners reading “TASMANIA’S ANCIENT FORESTS, WORLD HERITAGE NOT WOODCHIPS” and “THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING” are being displayed across the country.

Tall eucalypt forest, Upper FlorentineNEW MAPS AND DATA RELEASED BY SWST SHOW OVER HALF OF THE TALL

  EUCALYPT FOREST IN THE UPPER FLORENTINE IS AVAILABLE FOR

WHOLESALE DESTRUCTION!Reservation of vegetation types, Upper Florentine catchment: This map was compiled by forest campaigners, using data from the Land Information System Tasmania (LIST) website.

Community group Still Wild Still Threatened (SWST) has released new data showing that Forestry Tasmania's claim that 90% of the Upper Florentine catchment is "protected or otherwise unavailable for logging" is misleading

80 people gathered at Forestry Tasmania headquarters to hear forest campaigners present new information disputing Forestry's claims of protected land in the Upper Florentine.

Data from the Land Information System Tasmania website proves Forestry Tasmania have mislead the public by claiming 90% of the Upper Florentine is protected from logging. The data reveals the area available for logging is almost twice as large as FT claim. Worse still is the fact that 53% of the tall eucalyot forest is available for logging and 56% of old growth forest is available for logging. 

ACT NOW TO DEMAND THE STATE GOVERNMENT CORRECT FT'S MISLEADING CLAIMS AND STATE THE PRECISE AMOUNT OF TALL FOREST AVAILABLE FOR LOGGING.

DEMAND PREMIER BARTLETT TAKE ACTION TO SAVE THE UPPER FLORENTINE FOREST AND STOP FURTHER FORESTRY MISINFORMATION

Forestry Tasmania has repeatedly claimed that "no less than 90% of the Upper Florentine valley is protected for conservation values or otherwise unavailable for logging". This claim has been repeated by Minister Llewellyn, state and federal MPs, and Prime Minister Rudd's office
Forestry Tasmania has refused to release maps or evidence to verify its claims
Minister Llewellyn has told concerned Derwent Valley residents that maps showing the area protected in the Upper Florentine do not exist
Now data from the Land Information System Tasmania compiled by forest campaigners show that 19% of the Upper Florentine is available for logging - over 2,000 ha of forest that potentially could be logged, and double the amount previously acknowledged by Forestry (see map)
The unprotected area includes 53% of the tall eucalypt forest that Forestry most wants to log and 56% of the catchment's old growth tall forest
80% of the Upper Florentine's Eucalyptus regnans old growth forest, the tallest flowering plant species on the planet, is unprotected from logging
The Upper Florentine valley will be gutted by Forestry Tasmania's plans to destroy as much as 2,000 hectares of old growth forest, severely compromising the integrity of these World Heritage quality forests

TELL PREMIER BARTLETT THAT MINISTER LLEWELLYN MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR HIS MISHANDLING OF THE UPPER FLORENTINE

Minister Llewellyn has accepted and repeated Forestry Tasmania's misinformation without bothering to investigate the truth of its claims
Concerned Derwent Valley residents and the wider community have long feared that Forestry was misrepresenting the extent of its logging plans for the Upper Florentine - this new data shows their fears were correct
Minister Llewellyn's failure to investigate the true extent of Forestry's logging plans and his preparedness to repeat Forestry claims that have now been revealed as false are a dereliction of Ministerial responsibility

PLEASE CALL PREMIER BARTLETT AND ASK HIM TO:

Ensure that Minister Bartlett, and other members of the Tasmanian government, do not repeat further false Forestry claims
Investigate how it is that Minister Llewellyn was prepared to repeat claims made by Forestry that have now been revealed as false, without undertaking any investigation as to whether these claims were true
Halt all logging and road construction in the Upper Florentine valley

CONTACT PREMIER BARTLETT'S OFFICE
Ph: 6233 3464
Email: premier@dpac.tas.gov.au

Conservationists from Still Wild Still Threatened are protesting at the national meeting of environment ministers at Wrest point today.

Protesters are staging a performance called the Endangered Species Banquet. Two protesters in a double headed fat man suit are devouring a Tasmanian devil served up by a representative of the Forest Industry.