{"id":161812,"date":"2025-09-22T20:46:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T20:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/161812\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T20:46:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T20:46:10","slug":"sustainable-timber-tasmania-mistake-compromised-arrests-of-logging-protesters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/161812\/","title":{"rendered":"Sustainable Timber Tasmania mistake ‘compromised’ arrests of logging protesters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tasmanian forestry company workers “compromised” the prosecution of at least two dozen logging protesters, leading to police dropping charges against them.<\/p>\n

Right to Information (RTI) documents obtained by the ABC from the Department of Police, Fire and Emergency Management, showed the prosecutions were dropped “predominantly” due to the formal directions given by Sustainable Timber Tasmania (STT) representatives to protesters.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Tasmanian Aboriginal man Jim Everett is led to a police van at Bradys Lake in 2024. (Supplied: Jillian Mundy)<\/p>\n

The documents refer to protests last year, in the Wentworth Hills areas in January and May, at Brady’s Lake on February 1, Styx Valley in February and March.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors drop charges against anti-logging protesters<\/a><\/p>\n

Protesters disrupting logging in Tasmania appear to be gradually having trespass charges dropped by prosecutors, with 16 people walking free so far.<\/p>\n

According to the Bob Brown Foundation, at least 24 protesters who were at these protests have had their charges dropped.<\/p>\n

The ABC previously reported on the dropping of the charges, but the cause was unknown until now<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The RTI documents stated, in some cases, the directions were too broad, by effectively inferring the protesters had to leave all STT-managed land across the state, while some directions were not specific to the area where the protest was.<\/p>\n

“As such, the subsequent police actions of arrest were compromised by this technicality,” according to a background briefing for the Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Management.<\/p>\n

Another issue arose when a STT representative cited the wrong gazette date of a logging coupe near Dover in 2023, leading to the police having to drop that charge.<\/p>\n

“Advice has been provided to STT regarding the reasons for the discontinuation of these prosecutions, to inform future approaches to the direction of protesters from STT land,” the briefing note continues.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A “police legal officer” is now working with the logging company, the documents show. (Supplied: BBF)<\/p>\n

The documents outline that while standard trespass measures are straightforward, matters relating to logging coupes require additional evidence.<\/p>\n

“This can include the presence of clear signage, legal documentation and ensuring verbal direction given to protesters is clear and accurate,” the briefing note states.<\/p>\n

An internal email sent by Acting Inspector John Rafferty in January this year said a legal officer had been working with STT since early 2024 to ensure the required level of detail was provided.<\/p>\n

“Specifically, the content of the directions issued and the signage around the areas of logging activity,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

“STT have amended their processes accordingly, and as a result, are much more likely to proceed without issue.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tasmanian forestry company workers “compromised” the prosecution of at least two dozen logging protesters, leading to police dropping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,15190,99,48883,107063,90932],"class_list":["post-161812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bob-brown","tag-business","tag-forestry","tag-greenie","tag-logging"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}