Beware of the criminalization of environmental protests in Australia | Environment

In February, as the Australian summer drew to a close, environmental activist Ali Alishah entered the Styx Valley in Tasmania, Australia’s southernmost state. Next to him was Bob Brown, former leader of the Australian Greens in federal parliament and president of the environmental organization Bob Brown Foundation (BBF).

An island situated in the wilds of the Southern Ocean, Tasmania is world-renowned for its environmental values: a fifth of its land mass is recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Wilderness Area.

And yet, even among all this natural splendor, the Styx Valley is – as the name suggests – almost mythological. Towering in the valley are some of the best-known clumps of swamp ash (Eucalyptus regnans), the tallest flowering plant in the world.

In the part of the Styx where Alishah and Brown were, however, the sound of timber trucks echoed through the trees. An area of ​​the valley, less than 400 meters from the World Heritage Wilderness Area and which included ancient forest, was being logged by native forestry contractors.

After holding a non-violent protest, Alishah and Brown were arrested and charged with trespassing in an area set aside for forestry operations. Although Brown is due to appear in court in July, Alishah was remanded in custody and later sentenced to three months in prison, one of the most significant convictions for environmental protests in Australia this century.

The Styx Valley protest case put Brown and the BBF in the spotlight and sparked discussion across Australia about protesters’ rights and freedom of expression through activism. Namely, it raised questions about the legitimacy of a set of anti-protest laws that have been enacted across the country in recent years.

The laws, which have been passed in most Australian states, have attracted international scrutiny. For example, global NGO Human Rights Watch found last year that the state of New South Wales is “disproportionately” targeting climate protesters, “punishing them with heavy fines and up to two years in prison for protesting without permission.”

Similarly, in the state of South Australia, legislation passed in 2023 increased the penalty for “obstructing a public place” from $500 (752 Australian dollars) to a maximum of $33,000 (50,000 Australian dollars). This led the Environmental Defenders Office to declare that the “intent of the law is to punish only a small part of society for their actions – climate protesters.”

However, it is in Tasmania, where the BBF primarily operates, where legislation has gone beyond the individual in order to prosecute organisations. In 2022, legislation was introduced in state parliament that would increase penalties for protesters who obstruct commercial activities. “Corporations” supporting protesters would be subject to fines of more than $66,000 (A$99,000), enough to potentially bankrupt non-profit organizations.

Although the state government labeled the protesters as “radical extremists” who “invade workplaces and endanger workers,” their proposed law faced scrutiny and resistance: the legislation was eventually passed, albeit with significant changes. Organizations supporting environmental protests now face fines of more than $30,000 (A$45,000), less than half of what was originally proposed.

But if the state government hoped this bill would deter activism, it appears to have had the opposite effect. Rather than back down due to the severity of the financial consequences, environmental organizations across Australia were galvanized to further challenge the legitimacy of the laws.

Leading this are Brown and the BBF. Brown won a landmark case in 2017 in the High Court of Australia relating to an earlier version of Tasmania’s anti-protest laws. The presiding judge concluded that the legislation “directly targeted implicit freedom of expression” and was, therefore, unconstitutional.

Last month, on May 17, Alishah was released after serving a prison sentence for the Styx Valley protest. He immediately issued a statement, saying the “useless and draconian” legislation that resulted in his conviction had the “opposite effect” of what he intended to do, which was to “dissuade people from advocating for the protection of the Tasmanian forest”. State”.

“I can categorically state that anti-protest laws do not work because it is an honor, indeed a duty, to defend and protect our native heritage,” Alishah said.

As the debate around the right to protest plays out in Australia’s court system, one fundamental issue has not received the scrutiny it deserves: as native forests are receiving greater protections in many countries around the world, for example why are they being cut in Australia? ?

The answer, it turns out, is not much. In fact, the numbers show that the native forestry industry is, by any measure, struggling to stay afloat. Native forestry differs from plantation timber in that plantation forests are vast monocultures of a specific species; native forests are ecologically diverse. Currently, almost 90% of timber in Australia comes from plantations.

The market shift from native forest products to plantations was so extreme that it led the states of Western Australia and Victoria to abandon their respective forestry industries, citing a lack of economic viability.

In Tasmania, the story is the same. Research collected last year by public policy think tank The Australia Institute found that forestry jobs – both in plantations and native forests – account for less than 1 per cent of employment across the state.

Furthermore, figures presented by The Australia Institute describe that the Tasmanian state government has been subsidizing the industry for decades. In essence, what these numbers reveal is that Tasmanians are actually paying, through their tax dollars, for their forests to be cut down.

This includes habitats that are home to critically endangered species. Perhaps the most famous of these is the swift parrot (Lathamus discolor), the fastest parrot in the world. These birds, endemic to southeastern Australia, need the native forests of Tasmania to nest and breed, areas of which are currently reserved for logging.

In March, a team from the Australian National University found that the species’ population size is “declining largely due to deforestation of its breeding habitat in Tasmania.” Researchers have declared that swift parrots “will go extinct unless we urgently change the way we manage Tasmania’s forests”.

Despite these concerns, the current Tasmanian government has committed to opening up protected reserve areas to logging, with the state’s forestry minister, Felix Ellis, saying he was committed to the industry and “would not be blackmailed by environmentalists”.

With the Tasmanian government declaring its commitment to forestry and activists refusing to back down, the only certainty, it seems, is that environmental protest legislation will continue to be enacted and challenged across the island. Other Australian states, with the legitimacy of their own laws also in question, will be watching closely.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.