International campaign to save
Australia's oldest, tallest trees

Australia's oldest and tallest trees have been sold off to a 
logging company for the bargain price of just $10 a tonne. The 
trees have now become the focus of an international conservation 
campaign — and the world's highest tree-house.

The Global Rescue Station is set up 65 metres high in "Gandalf's 
Staff", a giant Styx Valley tree, breaking all world records.

Activists from four countries: Australia, Japan, Germany and 
Canada are now living amongst the tree tops keeping in touch with 
the world by satellite and webcam.

The Styx Valley contains the tallest hardwood trees on Earth. 
Many of the trees are taller than a 25-storey building, over 400 
years old, and up to five metres wide at the base.

The Styx Valley is only 70 kilometres west of Hobart and is on 
the edge of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area — one 
of the great temperate wilderness areas on Earth.

The tallest trees in the Styx are the mighty Eucalyptus regnans -
- commonly know as "mountain ash" or "swamp gum" — the tallest 
hardwood trees and flowering plants on Earth.

They are second in height only to the famous coastal redwoods of 
North America (softwoods) though this was not always the case. An 
E regnans in Victoria in the 1870s was measured at over 120 
metres — the tallest tree recorded in history.

Greenpeace and the Wilderness Society, who are jointly co-
ordinating the campaign, hope the Styx Valley sit-in will inspire 
the same level of public outcry the stopped the construction of 
the Franklin River Dam 20 years ago.

Bob Brown, Greens Senator for Tasmania also hopes that the Styx 
Valley will be a major issue in next year's Federal Election 
campaign.

"The Prime Minister, John Howard signed the Regional Forest 
Agreement — effectively a death warrant on the forests — in 
1997 and, since, woodchip exports to Japan have doubled", said 
Senator Brown.

"The clear-felling, burning and poisoning of the Tasmanian 
forests and their wildlife is an international disgrace."

Paul Lennon, Tasmanian Deputy Premier, dismissed the protest as a 
"juvenile and meaningless media stunt".