Forest defender Nishant Datt will spend one month in jail after breaching a suspended sentence whilst participating in a protest at the Huon Valley Ta Ann mill, according to the Huon Valley Environment Centre. He was also sentenced to a further one month imprisonment wholly suspended for 18 months.
Huon Valley Environment Centre’s Jenny Weber said, “Nishant Datt has been a defender of the wild forests of Tasmania for seven years. The newly listed World Heritage value forests are the places that he has worked tirelessly to defend from logging.”
“Those people who are aware of environmental destruction are morally compelled to highlight this. In the face of Government ineptitude and a short-sighted industry, this often calls for non-violent protest in order to prevent the loss of unique forests,” Weber said.
“If it wasn’t for people like Nishant, the Upper Florentine Valley would have been riddled with 15 clearfells, and instead remains an intact ecosystem of tall eucalyptus forest that is World Heritage listed,” Weber said.
The State Liberal Party is proposing new laws for mandatory sentences and big fines for protesters and conservation organisations if they are elected to government, she said. This type of disproportionate, heavy-handed crackdown on the environment movements is designed to push a political agenda. People will remain committed to being on the frontline defending the environment as long as it is being destroyed, Weber added.
Check out more at Huon Valley Environment Centre.
