Woodchipping Protest A Failure! : Melbourne Indymedia

An action organised by several environmental groups at the “South East Fibre Exports’ Woodchip Mill at Eden on Monday June 7th was an abject failure.

About 35 conservationists from ‘Chipstop’, ‘GECO’ and ‘South East Forest Rescue’, led by Scott Daines and Harriet Swift, converged on the mill early in the morning with the intention of stopping both production and log deliveries.

After attempting to disable the mills’ electric fence system in various places the group were spied hiding in the scrub near the main gates. Despite being told that they were on private property and being asked to leave they made their way to the gate where they erected a small banner.

At one stage some activists forced open the main gate but were pushed back by mill employees, several of who were assaulted and had their spectacles smashed.

Once it became obvious that their cause was futile the group began to disperse leaving only a few diehards at the gate. 4 police arrived soon after and these people were charged with various offences.

A part of the group then ‘locked on’ to another gate further away from the mill and only succeeded in blocking the 2 police vehicles from leaving the site. Once police negotiated the end of the ‘lock-on’ a group then decided to just sit on the road.

All of this had no affect whatsoever on the operations of the mill, trucks or bush crews. Production in the mill continued at full pace all day and trucks had already been asked to stay away for the day.

2 media releases by the conservationists – 1 on the Monday stating that they had halted the chip mills’ production and the other on the Tuesday stating that they were going to disrupt bush operations were blatantly false. No actions were reported in the bush on the Tuesday and no conservationists were seen.

All trucks were back at work early on the Tuesday morning as planned.

The lack of publicity surrounding this action on forums such as ‘Indymedia’ only show that the conservationists themselves know that this was a failure and that they are embarrassed by it. They were outsmarted, out thought and out of luck.