Treetop Protest at Tasmanian Logging

Environmentalists have built what they say is the world's highest treehouse in an attempt to stop the logging of old-growth forest in Australia.

Greenpeace and the Wilderness Society used ropes strung from tree tops to suspend two platforms 65 metres (over 200ft) above the forest floor in Tasmania's Styx valley. The platforms are intended to accommodate six people in tents, along with a kitchen, a washroom, and a computer with satellite dish to relay pictures of the protest.

Woodchip logging in the valley consumes up to 600 hectares (1,500 acres) a year. Many trees are over 400 years old and well over 90 metres, approaching the height of St Paul's cathedral. "We hope this treehouse will save these trees from logging," said Greenpeace spokesman Danny Kennedy. "The activists camped in it are telling the world that woodchip exports are killing one of the world's most valuable forests." Most timber is likely to go to Japan's paper industry, he said.

The eucalyptus regnans in the Styx valley is the tallest hardwood tree in the world, with some reported specimens even taller than the redwood sequoias of America, thought to be the world's largest plants.

Nearly 60,000 hectares of Tasmania's forests have been logged in the past five years, and environmentalists want a national park set up along the Styx.

The treetop protest was dismissed as a stunt by forestry representatives, who said that 40% of Tasmania's forests were protected. And federal environment minister Ian Macfarlane said the government had already made concessions to campaigners. "This was all determined six years ago and the federal government won't be revisiting its decision," he said.

Protests over the Styx have been the biggest in the state since the Franklin campaign of the 1980s against a dam. An arts festival this year was boycotted by prizewinning novelists Peter Carey, Tim Winton and Richard Flanagan, because of its sponsorship by Forestry Tasmania.