Blue Derby Wild have a hearing before the full bench (all seven Justices) of the High Court of Australia this Tuesday! This court date is set down to hear our special leave application, and our request for an urgent injunction on any further logging and burning of Krushka’s forests.
This is huge! It is only a matter of days since our magnificent, and indefatigable, legal team submitted the paperwork asking the High Court - the highest court in the land - to consider our special leave application and urgent injunction application. And they have seen fit to list a hearing for our applications this Tuesday April 23, at 9.30 am.
We are encouraged that the High Court has seen fit to hear our case, and so quickly. It is incredibly hard to be successful in a special leave application. We are hopeful, and doing all we can over the coming days to be fully prepared .
While we make this bold leap out of the Tasmanian legal system and into our nation's most influential court we are continuing to keep an eagle eye on what is going on in our forests. Not just Krushka’s forests around Derby where the government business logging agency is proposing to recommence logging and burning in the coming days and weeks, but all our irreplaceable native forests. We cannot imagine that our government in the State of Tasmania would be undertaking any works in Krushka’s forests whilst the High Court is looking at it. That would be an unfathomable sign of disrespect.
Our case is about so much more than Kruskha’s forests, which we are deeply attached to, but all Tasmania’s forests that are - we claim - being (or have been) logged in an unlawful way as the government logging agency Forestry Tasmania, trading as Sustainable Timber Tasmania, is regulating themselves.Since the Full Court of Tasmania handed down their decision against us on April 12, this case has expanded to include the question of whether community groups and incorporated associations with an interest in advocating for nature and the environment are able to challenge logging of our native forests through our legal system. Effectively undermining the standing of organisations and community groups in Tasmania to run the landmark cases they have for over 40 years.
Both these issues of Forestry Tasmania/Sustainable Timber Tasmania’s many decades of logging while wearing two hats of the logger and the regulator, raising (we claim) issues of apprehended bias…and now a very important question of the ability of community groups, organisations and volunteer groups to stand up for nature. This is massive!
The High Court of Australia will have our hearing streamed online via their website. For those who can’t tune in on Tuesday, we will send an update after the hearing. Until then we are working day and night to be as ready for our High Court appearance, and what comes next.
For the forests
Louise
Campaign Coordinator, Blue Derby Wild
P.S. If you’d like to support our bold bid to hold government logging to account you can donate to our Legal Fighting Fund directly via
Blue Derby Wild Legal Fighting Fund:
BSB 313140. ACC: 1229 4120