It was great to have guests visiting the Observer Tree this week, all the way from Japan. And it was so great to finally meet Akira Harada, from Japan Tropical Forest Action Network (JATAN). We have had many emails back and forth over the past eight months and some talks over Skype, collaborating on the campaign for forest protection. For grassroots groups in Tasmania and Japan to work together has been so valuable in exposing the truth to the Japanese customers of Ta Ann.

A large amount of Tasmania’s high conservation value forests are ending up in Japan. Malaysian company Ta Ann are selling these products to their corporate customers in Japan, labelling them as “eco,” environmentally friendly. Please take a moment to send a message to those customer companies about the destruction of Tasmania’s forests: click HERE.

Although we were only able to talk over the walkie talkie, separated by 60 meters, it was great to meet Akira and his associates. While they were here they made me a warm soup for lunch and sent up some lovely presents. I hope that we will continue to work together, from Tasmania to Japan, to help protect these precious forests.

I hope you enjoy this video blog:

From Thursday’s media release:

Mr Akira Harada, a spokesperson for Japanese ENGO JATAN who is currently in Tasmania inspecting the logging of high conservation value forests that were exempted from a logging moratorium, said “I am not happy to witness the logging destruction of Tasmania’s magnificent forests that are of global importance. It is not acceptable for the market in Japan to buy the product of such forest destruction sold as ‘eco’ wood.”

“It is vital that such forests are protected, and that Japanese customers of Tasmanian product such as that sold by Ta Ann can then have confidence that their product is from acceptable sources. This is not yet the case,” Mr Harada said.