Since police raided the Florentine Valley protest camp on May 4, at least 32 people have been arrested for participating in protests against logging in the southern Tasmanian valley.
Twenty-two protesters were arrested on May 10 for simply walking through or behind a police blockade to explore the newly bulldozed road, which has opened up the area for logging (and has led to an "exclusion zone" being declared to keep the public out).
They were part of a rally of around 300 people who were protesting the forest's destruction.
Socialist Alliance member Tim Douglas was one of those arrested. He told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly: "Logging of old-growth forests has been proven to be so wrong economically, scientifically, socially … The experts and the public have been ignored for so long that I just wanted to put my name on the list of people who are prepared to disobey police protection of the logging operations."
Speakers at the rally included Greens MP Tim Morris, who said: "Whenever Forestry Tasmania has to hide behind a row of police and an exclusion zone, we know they don't have community support."
Acclaimed photographer Rob Blakers also addressed the crowd, pointing out the massive amount of carbon stored within the forest, much of which gets released through regeneration burn-offs carried out after the clear-felling.
"Tasmania should be taking every opportunity to preserve these old-growth forests as living, resilient, bio-diverse carbon stores", he said.
"To continue to destroy these forests is a crime against the planet."
Forest activists criticised state Premier David Bartlett for refusing to meet with them and for being unable to back up Forestry Tasmania's claim that 90% of the Florentine would be protected from logging.
Activists also expressed scepticism over claims by the forestry industry that high volumes of saw logs would be taken from the coupe, saying that 14 of the 16 trucks that left last week were headed to the wood-chip mills.
More than 100 people also attended a protest for the Florentine outside Parliament house in Hobart on May 6. Activist Penelle Kinghorn spoke of Tasmania's world-famous natural beauty, but "developers and industrialists are hungry to destroy and devour as much of this pristine beauty as fast as they can for a very limited short-term profit".
The same day, 20 police moved to break up a protest camp in the southern Weld Valley where there is another ongoing battle against old-growth logging.
There has been a public outcry over the heavy bail conditions imposed on some protesters.
For example, Bridget Gattenby, a 21-year-old who chained herself to a truck carrying pulp logs from the Upper Florentine, was charged with public nuisance and obstructing a road. Her bail conditions prevent her from leaving her home between the hours of 7am and 3pm.
There was further outrage when Bartlett made a an announcement on May 13, following the federal budget, that he would completely abolish the Department of Environment, Parks, Heritage and Arts.
Environment and parks would be returned under the umbrella of the Department of Primary Industries and Water (DPIW), while Heritage and Arts will be swallowed by the Department of Economic Development.
The May 15 Australian reported that 30 to 40 jobs would be lost as a result. The May 14 Hobart Mercury quoted Greens leader Nick McKim saying the move made no sense.
"This Government moved Environment out of DPIW in the past, presumably because they acknowledged the tensions between an industry support agency, which is what DPIW is, and an environmental regulator, which is what Environment purports to be", he said.