Supreme Court Case to Save Sylvia
Overview
Forests worldwide are critically important for the ecological functions they provide including clean air, pure water, climate regulation and carbon storage. The challenge for our generation is to prevent further biodiversity loss whilst creating a measurement for natural capital that protects it from man made degradation. The global, annual value of ecosystem services is estimated at US$33 trillion whilst the total global gross national product is around US$18 trillion per annum. The intelligent option is to protect and improve natural ecosystem function, not log and degrade them.
Legal Team:
The legal challenge has been prepared by solicitors from Bleyer Lawyers with barristers, Kristen Walker and Emrys Nekvapil, with support from Debbie Mortimer SC. Ms Mortimer SC was involved in a similar Brown Mountain Forest case in 2009 for East Gippsland, which resulted in the Court restraining VicForests from logging at Brown Mountain, and the recent successful High Court injunction to export refugees to Malaysia. Bleyer Lawyers acted for Environment East Gippsland Inc in the Brown Mountain case.
DAVID & GOLIATH
VicForest have a large legal team funded by the Victorian tax payer. We have but three but they are a force to be reckoned with;
Kristen Walker SC is a powerful yet sensitive barrister with a board history in social and environmental law
Emrys Nekvapil is the junior barrister on the case and a man that has extensive experience in commercial, social and environmental law.
Vanessa Bleyer is the firm who has taken the case on our behalf. Vanessa comes to the case with a broad range of legal experience and success behind her. Bleyer law firm are one of Australia's few conservation directed law firms.
Due to the scientific nature of this case, our legal team have retained expert witnesses to qualify the levels of threat to endangered species;
Professor David Lindenmayer BSc, DipEd, PhD, DSc, FAA Professor, The Fenner School of Environment and Society ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment
Professor David Lindenmayer is a Research Professor at the Australian National University. He completed his PhD in 1990 with his thesis titled “The Ecology and Habitat Requirements of Leadbeater's Possum”. Since that time, he totals 753 publications. He is the preeminent expert on the Leadbeater’s Possum and Hollow-bearing Trees in the Central Highlands.
VicForests have added economic arguments so our legal team have retained;
Dr Judith Ajani Judith Ajani is an economist based at the ANU’s Fenner School of Environment and Society. She has nearly 30 years of forestry industry research and policy experience in both government and academia. Judith is the author of the well respected book 'Forest Wars' and has a background in advising the Victorian Government.
Community Education:
We are working with our NGO partners and local government to help educate community on the challenges facing our forest ecosystems. This includes work on an Australian National Standard for forest certification, tours, e-learning in species and forest identification, surveying, a state wide audit of the health of our ecosystems and school programs with other local community groups.
According to polling more than 80% people don’t want their native forests chipped for paper; they want tourism, healthy catchments, healthy wildlife, good wood and to discourage governments from acting outside community interests.
The key goal of our community campaign is an education and science program aimed at teaching people how to value the forests and the ecosystem services they provide. This is run by a qualified science team employed to take community courses in forest assessments and reporting. Tours and information made available throughout the communities on the needs of endangered species and what they can do to help. This campaign will further educate the community on their purchasing power and encourage the buying of goods that are not derived from unsustainable or unlawful forest management practices.
With the appreciation of ecosystem services provided by native forests increasing in the business world and the community, it is now time to protect what remains.
|
|
Tax Deductible DonationsIf you would like to support MyEnvironment please click here to make a tax deductible donation For donations over $1000 you are welcome to contact us for a more detailed prospectus |
|
Beaten Leadbeater's?
A pretty little possum with a black stripe down its back,
It darts throughout the forest tops through depths of darkest night.
It forages for sugars, grabbing insects for a snack,
Then slips back to its hollow with arrival of the light.
It was named 'Leadbeater's Possum' for a past museum worker,
A famous taxidermist (little creatures he would stuff),
But the story of this possum is a genuine tear jerker.
Oh, life has not been easy for this precious ball of fluff.
It thrives, you see, on forests, but its habitat is narrow.
From Marysville to Baw Baw, thereabouts, denotes its range.
It's Victoria's state emblem so, in part, we push its barrow,
But we challenge without mercy its capacity for change.
For we chopped and hacked the forest lands that were its sole dominion.
We plundered and we butchered and we put it on the run.
We reached the point where scientists were of the broad opinion
It was done for. Then it re-emerged in 1961.
Though we scarcely did deserve it, we'd been granted a reprieve,
A chance to right a wrong, to mend the errors of our ways
But, alas, we mended nothing, so we?re forced once more to grieve,
And face the harsh reality that crime just never pays.
A crime? Am I mistaken? You can check the regulations
And the statutes in the law books on the dim and dusty shelves.
You will never find it mentioned, though you search through many nations.
It's a crime against sweet Nature. It's a crime against ourselves.
For it seems we've missed our moment. It would seem Leadbeater's Possum
Is living now on borrowed time, it's fate forever sealed.
We could have ceased all logging and allowed the beast to blossom,
But a vision such as this, alas, shall never be revealed.
Then let us throw the dice once more. The odds, it's true, aren't pretty.
Let us do at last what's right, and put an end to crime.
The human soul needs more than just the bright lights of the city.
Let us let the forests stand, and leave the rest to time.
Who knows what magic beckons if we put aside our blunders,
If we down the screaming chainsaws and revert to Nature's dance?
What panoply awaits us, what array of shining wonders?
Perhaps Leadbeater's Possum, too, still has a fighting chance!
© Stephen Whiteside 26 July 2011