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Six women charged after protest – Coffs Harbour

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Six women charged after protest – Coffs Harbour

Wednesday, 23 April 2025 08:27:19 PM

Six women have been charged following an unauthorised protest at Coffs Harbour earlier today.

 

About 9.30am today (Wednesday 23 April 2025), officers from Coffs/Clarence Police District responded to reports of protesters on the roof of a building in Park Street, Coffs Harbour.

 

It will be alleged that six women – aged between 24 and 65 – failed to comply with a direction to leave the building.

 

With the assistance of the Police Rescue Squad, six women were arrested and removed from the roof, with the last woman was removed at 1.30pm.

 

There were no reports of injuries.

 

All six were taken to Coffs Harbour Police Station where they were charged with offensive conduct whilst on inclosed lands.

 

They were all granted conditional bail to appear at Coffs Harbour Local Court on various future dates.

*Media Release issued by Protesters -23 April 2025 BEFORE ARREST

8 Women Occupy Forestry Corp Building-Happening Now!

LOCATION: Forest Corporation Headquarters (30 Park Ave, Coffs Harbour NSW 2450)

This morning eight women from around northern NSW attached themselves to the entrance and rooftop of the Forestry Corporation’s office in Park Avenue, Coffs Harbour. 

Using devices including pipe arm locks, they are occupying the building and have deployed banners reading “End Native Forest Logging Now!” and “We destroy it. You pay for it” next to the Forestry Corp logo.

The group say the corporation is a criminal entity, found guilty of multiple crimes and costing taxpayers many millions in fines and legal fees. For example, they recently spent more than $1 million when they lost a case against conservation groups over breaches of logging rules.

The forest protectors include Knitting Nana Sharon Hodge, 65, filmmaker Juliet Lamont, 54, registered nurse Daisy Nutty, 51, Jayde Haven, 27, from Mullumbimby and child protection social worker Isla Lamont, 24.

Juliet Lamont said, “We are on the brink of a climate catastrophe. We have all experienced it with recent floods and cyclones edging further south. We need to secure a sustainable future for our children. Our governments are showing no visionary leadership so ordinary citizens are being forced to show the way forward.”

“No one wants to climb onto roofs and face arrest but good people historically can protest bad laws. And force their hand. It is our moral duty to save what is left of our precious native forests. We can do this. A better world is possible,” she continued.

 

Daisy Nutty said, “Forestry Corporation runs at a loss, so the community purse is paying them to push endangered wildlife like Koalas and Greater Gliders to extinction.”

Jayde Haven said, “Forestry Corporation routinely breaks the rules, felling habitat trees, fudging harvest numbers, damaging old-growth rainforest, polluting streams and creeks and pushing threatened species to the brink, all funded by NSW taxpayers.”

It was recently exposed that they spent five years looking for nocturnal threatened animals during the day, meaning they didn’t find any and so did not have to protect any forest.

The women say Forestry Corporation are responsible for the destruction of natural heritage throughout the state and irreplaceable forests, already threatened by climate change, are being degraded and their biodiversity diminished.

They are occupying the building because Forestry Corporation is a rogue and unaccountable government agency and should be shut down, they say.

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