Community groups protesting the construction of a logging highway and subsequent felling of the pristine forests in the Weld River Valley have ended a Community Picket at a site just off the Weld River Road in South Western Tasmania . The action ended after Forestry Tasmania delclared the area an exclusion zone and called in police to remove the protesters.

The action had consisted of a manned platform 30 metres in the air. The platform was bound via various cabling to a Forestry Tasmania gate but the platform had been removed long before police arrived. Protesters were camping on site and are calling for support.

Spokesperson for one of the groups taking part in the community action, Huon resident, Jenny Weber from the Native Forest Network, said, “The Weld Valley is the pristine twin of the Styx Valley and was recommended for World Heritage listing in the late 1980s by a number of bodies, including the Department of Parks, Wildlifeand Heritage and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. If this road goes ahead, huge areas of this magnificent valley will be clear felled, burned, poisoned with 1080, and no matter what sort of trees replace it, the Weld will never be the same ancient and biodiverse forest again."

Adam Burling, from the Native Forest Network said " The action had been sucessfull in raising public awarness of the danger the Weld River Valley was facing. he said  “A preserved Weld Valley would enrich Tasmania far more than what’s currently being planned for it by Forestry Tasmania. Not only is the Weld River south east Tasmania’s last wild river, but like the Styx Valley, the Weld’s forest have the tallest hardwood trees in the world: - people flock to the Airwalk just to be in forests like this. When you consider that around 8 cups of coffee at the Airwalk cafeteria are worth more than a tonne of woodchips, then surely even Forestry Tasmania and Mr. Bacon must realise that our current forestry policies can no longer be defended!