Fed: Brown says area Latham visited might soon be logged

AAP General News (Australia)
04-07-2004
Fed: Brown says area Latham visited might soon be logged

CANBERRA, April 7 AAP - Australian Greens senator Bob Brown fears an area of the Styx
Valley in Tasmania visited last month by federal Opposition leader Mark Latham will be
logged.

Conservationists today started dismantling a protest platform 65m high in a eucalyptus
regnans known as Gandalf's Staff.

Senator Brown today said Mr Latham, who toured the area with him, should ask the Tasmanian
Labor government to ensure the area was not logged.

He said it was unsafe for protesters to stay on the platform during winter and it was
possible logging operations could soon begin in the area.

"The grim determination of the Lennon government in Tasmania is one where they will
take advantage and move in the bulldozers even in winter, but that remains to be seen,"

he told reporters.

Senator Brown showed a press conference video footage of the remains of trees in a
clear-felled logging coupe, which Mr Latham also visited, being incinerated.

He said the nearby coupe where Gandalf's Staff stands would face the same fate if it was logged.

Senator Brown urged the federal Labor Party to commit to protecting Tasmanian forests.

"It'd be good for ... Mr Latham and Labor to talk to Bob Hawke about that and how the
Australian people backed him in moving in to protect the Franklin and then the Daintree
forests and then Kakadu," he said.

AAP pj/sb/cmc/jlw

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