Taking up a tactic long used by Australian environmentalists, the country's largest timber company has gone to court to try to block prominent environmental campaigners from carrying out what it claims are violent protests and to demand millions of dollars in damages from anti-logging demonstrations.
SYDNEY, Australia — Taking up a tactic long used by Australian environmentalists, the country's largest timber company has gone to court to try to block prominent environmental campaigners from carrying out what it claims are violent protests and to demand millions of dollars in damages from anti-logging demonstrations.
Hearings will be held next month on the suit filed by Gunns Ltd. accusing the Australia-based Wilderness Society, federal Sen. Bob Brown of the Green Party and 18 other environmental activists of engaging in "guerrilla tactics" at four logging sites in the southern state of Tasmania.
The 216-page suit filed late last year in the Victoria Supreme Court accuses the defendants of sabotaging logging machines, destroying private property, trespassing, blocking access to land and obstructing police. It also claims the defendants organized smear campaigns targeting Gunns' overseas customers -- particularly in Japan and Belgium -- and vilifying Gunns investors and shareholders.
Gunns is seeking an injunction against such tactics and Australian $6.36 million (US$4.8 million; euro3.91 million) in damages.
Environmentalists, who frequently have gone to court to battle logging companies, argue the Gunns' lawsuit undermines their right to free speech.
!ADVERTISEMENT!
"We see this whole court case as being very dangerous for the right of ordinary people to get out there and play their part in protecting the environment," said Alexander Marr, a forest campaigner for the Wilderness Society and the lead defendant in the case. "The logging industry does not accept that it's acceptable for anybody to protest against the logging industry in any form."
Lawyers for the defendants have filed a motion seeking to force Gunns to produce evidence backing their claims. Preliminary hearings in the case are scheduled to begin on July 4 in the Victoria Supreme Court.
"At the moment we have 200 pages of accusations and no worthwhile documentation backing up those accusations," Marr said.
Gunns has refused to comment on the case while the trial is pending. But in a statement issued last year, the company said it was forced to act to protect the interests of shareholders, employees and contractors.
Timber industry groups support the move, saying the protesters have gone too far. They accuse environmental activists of harassing workers, damaging logging equipment, defecating on private property and putting lives at risk by placing metal spikes in trees.
"We've put up with 20 years of disruption to our workplace. There's loss of wages, in some instances loss of jobs," forestry union spokesman Scott McLean said in a telephone interview. "These things are not fair. This is guerrilla warfare these people are carrying out."
Terry Edwards, chief executive of the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania, also supports the lawsuit.
"We don't object to people wishing to express themselves by way of protest, but they've got to do it within the law of the land," he said. "Where they don't, that gives rise to damages claims within the courts."
But Sen. Brown says the allegations are false and that it is the timber industry supporters -- not the environmentalists -- who have resorted to violence.
"I've never crossed that line and I believe totally in peaceful protests," Brown told The Associated Press.
"I've had death threats in my time as an activist, I've had shots fired at me. ... The logging industry has a record which should be held up and answered for," he added.
Timber groups also claim environmentalists have distorted the view of logging in Tasmania, claiming a disproportionately large area of the state's ancient forests are razed.
"The state has a very, very high level of preservation," said Edwards of the Forest Industries Association. He cited statistics from Forestry Tasmania, the state body that manages forests, showing that around 46 percent of Tasmania is preserved in World Heritage areas, national parks or other reserves that cannot be logged.
Of the state's 3.2 million hectares (7.9 million acres) of unprotected forest, roughly 38,000 hectares (93,860 acres) -- not much more than 1 percent -- is logged each year, he said.
But Brown calls those figures "a total cheat," saying many of the reserve areas do not include the largest stands of old growth forest, have already been logged, or are open to mining and other forms of industry.
Lawyers have said the case could last up to two years. In the meantime, Brown says the logging company's suit won't deter him from environmental activism.
"They can take every penny I've got, they can take every home convenience and they can take every good night's sleep I've got left in my life but I won't back off," he said.
Source: Associated Press
