In this update:

The Brown Mountain landmark trial continues!

Hello everyone,

Sorry there have been no daily court updates. We have been extremely hectic with only the absolute essential court related work getting done each day (and night).

We are also a little restricted on what they can say publicly.
But ...

The case has spilled into week three with a final rounding-up on week four which will be in Melbourne. We'd love to have some people in court. It is an interesting experience for people in and out of Gippsland!
We'll let you know the details closer to the time.



Last week (week 2) was another week of our expert witnesses giving their expert opinions and facts to the Court and Judge. The VicForests barristers cross examined our experts.
Mostly, their questions were regarding which definition of the precautionary principle they used and why they didn't use the risk-weighted analysis of options (as found in DSE's Code of logging practices).


The suggestion seemed to be that they didn't also include the risks to the local economy and the industry when writing their reports.
Another argument that's used is that the 400 ha that Brumby recently put into a reserve to the west (drier and partly logged country) would make up for the loss of what's been described as extremely high quality forest for owls, quolls, the new cray, etc etc.

Anyway - overall, our team seems happy.

One interesting thing from our arboreal expert was that of all his surveys over the past 30 years along the east coast of Aust, only two other sites have ever been identified with such a rich population of arboreal mammals (gliders and possums).

There have been some other fascinating gems of evidence given, but we'll have to wait until after the case to report on it all.

Thanks again to all the $$$ help that's still coming in. We'll be needing every penny of it. And as one donor put it - "This is the best investment I've ever made!"