Australian Forestry Workers Urged to Be Protected After Receiving Threats

Protesters are seen during an anti-logging rally at Martin Place in Sydney, Oct.13, 2022. (AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts)

Forestry workers in the state of New South Wales (NSW) have experienced interruptions to their operations and families as tensions between the industry and protestors continue.

Tensions continue to arise due to environmental and financial concerns, the fallout from the Victorian native logging ban and a promised “great koala national park.”

It was alleged in Parliament that NSW forestry workers had faeces thrown at them, been receiving up to 200 harassing phone calls a day, and threats to rape their wives.

In response, Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty to call for protesters to show more respect.

“Everyone deserves to go to work and be able to come home safely,” Ms. Moriarty said, reported AAP.

“People who move onto forest land need to be safe from injury and also not put others at risk.

“I respect the right of people to protest but we also have to respect each other and not put people’s and worker’s lives at risk of injury or worse.”

In February, three protestors were arrested for protesting logging operations by either suspending from a tree or sitting 25 metres above harvesting material before police arrived and arrested them.

NSW Shooters, Fishers and Farmers MP Mark Banasiak told Parliament on Aug. 3 that earlier that day, six protestors had been an inch from losing their lives after they entered a section of forest closed off to the public and lay hidden from view in the grass.

“It was only by the purest of sheer dumb luck that a harvester chain broke at that exact moment and the operator got out to change it and noticed them lying there,” he said.

“These people were in the path of the very next tree to be harvested. Make no mistake, had that chain not broken when it did, we would have six dead kids out there in that forest today.”

Mr. Banasiak said contrary to the group’s public declaration that they safely occupied a logging dump and forced the machines off, the operators had halted operations because their workers went home traumatised.

“They physically could not continue. Imagine going to work in the morning to do what you have done for most of your life to put food on the table for your family and kids, only to have multiple young people nearly die right in front of you,” he said.

Legislation to Protect Forestry Workers

Mr. Banasiak also said that there’s a need to create timber safety zones to protect workers and introduced a bill that would be similar to legislation that passed in Victoria back in August 2022 to protect forestry workers.

During parliament, Mr. Banasiak said he had learned of many instances where forestry workers had received threatening behaviour from protestors.

“One wife of a worker was threatened with rape. Another was told that they hoped they were murdered in their sleep. Others have had insinuations of harm being made against their children along the lines of, ‘I know where your kids get off the school bus in the afternoon,’” Mr. Banasiak told parliament.

“Human faeces have been thrown at workers and protesters have threatened to urinate on them.”

Victoria passed legislation to protect forestry workers on Aug. 5, 2022, which prevents repeated safety risks across multiple Timber Harvesting Safety Zones and brings stronger penalties to deter dangerous protest activities that puts the safety of both forestry workers and people who illegally enter dangerous work sites at risk.

Authorised Officers of the Victorian Timber Harvesting Safety Zones are also given additional powers to search containers, bags, and vehicles for prohibited items.

The Forestry Amendment (Timber Harvesting Safety Zones) Bill 2023 tabled by Mr. Banasiak on Aug. 2 is an act to amend the Forestry Act 2012, and make it an offence for unauthorised persons to enter timber harvesting safety zones.

State opposition is yet to consider the proposed law by Mr. Banasiak or may even introduce its own version.

Aboriginal Elders on Protecting Native Land

Controlled burns are often planned across the country to improve habitat conditions for native wildlife to encourage grass regrowth and reduce the shrub layer to create a balance of grasses.

On July 31, Gumbaynggirr Elders, Traditional Custodians, and allies established a protest camp against industrial logging on sacred Aboriginal land within the Newry State Forest located in NSW, before they were met with armed police and the NSW Fire Brigade to extinguish the sacred fire they had lit.

A Gumbaynggirrr spokesperson said the area marked for logging expands across 2,500 hectares of the Newry State Forest and is also home to many endangered native animals, including koalas and possum gliders.

“These industrial logging operations destroy our water security, make our globally significant forest fauna extinct, destroy important public assets and carbon stores and endanger lives and properties by causing much more intense and frequent bushfires,” said the spokesperson, reported the National Indigenous Times.

“Our land is being destroyed at this time by logging. The Newry State Forest holds our Nunguu Miirlarl, our sacred men’s place and is home to many endangered animals, particularly our Koalas and our possum glider.”

Traditional Custodian of the Newry area, Sandy Greenwood, said the sacred men’s area, dozens of “dreaming trees,” and other significant cultural sites have been disregarded by NSW Forestry Corporation.

Logging of “unburnt country must not happen because this destroys our wildlife,” Ms. Greenwood said.

Although Forestry Corporation NSW said it had engaged and worked closely with local Aboriginal communities, the Nature Conservation Council of NSW (NCC) said the industry had “no social license” as the public does not support the forestry industry logging public forests.

“Forests in NSW are incredibly carbon rich, which means they are also big emitters when destroyed. 3.6 million tonnes of carbon are released every year through native forest logging in NSW, the equivalent of 840,000 cars,” NCC CEO Jacqui Mumford said.

“Protecting them for their carbon value would be a huge step towards achieving NSW’s emissions targets.”

The clashes between NSW protestors and the logging industry comes after Victoria said in May it would end native timber harvesting by 2024. Many Victorian forestry workers face an uncertain future with the end to native timber harvesting ending early.

State-owned logging agency Vicforest recorded an annual report with a loss of $54.2 million (US$35.7 million) last year.