As I've mentioned before, Tasmania has some pretty damn wonderful wildlife, including the Giant Red-Eyed Demon Bunny of Bruny Island.

Unfortunately, this morning we learn it's also the home of a powerful woodchip exporter whose approach to the environment sounds like something from Dr. Suess:

First, their loggers come and clear-cut an area.  Then, rather than hauling out the felled trees, helicopters are sent in to drop incendiary devices to light the slag on fire...  The dense hardwoods burn hot and slow for days, but eventually cool back down, and that’s when the loggers return—but not to plant new trees yet.  Instead, they scatter the charred forest floor with carrots soaked in a chemical known as 1080.  All the animals that then come to feed on the carrots — including wombats, possums, and wallabies — quickly die.  Only when all the native life has been drained do the foresters return, to plant non-native trees in massive plantations, which are then aerially sprayed with chemicals.

No word yet on whether the men dumping the chemicals wear black top hats and and twirl their mustaches.  But you kinda assume so.

Whether those chemicals are dangerous or not is anyone’s guess.  [Wood-chip exporter] Gunns' lobbying has eliminated most oversight — they’re not required to file environmental impact statements, nor detailed lists of chemicals used, nor announce their schedule of operations in advance — leaving communities with very little information.

Naturally, this doesn't leave the locals exactly thrilled.

Most of the residents of Lucaston Valley are farmers or small business people, along with a smattering of eco-commuters who are drawn to the lush natural landscape. Tasmania’s forests are a living relic of a lost world, with verdant multi-storied layers of ferns, creeping vines, and the world’s tallest hard wood forests. Overhead, branches reach more than two hundred feet high, while underneath, thick carpets of moss and mulch soften the step. "Our little area's a small community and 98% of us didn’t want logging trucks," [local resident] Geraghty explains.

So naturally, the residents began to organize and protest.

So far, this is all pretty much the sort of give-and-take we're accustomed to: a large corporation (a fictitious entity created solely to limit liability and accountability, yet mandated by a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit) morphs into a psychotic death machine, embarks on a fire-breathing rampage, and the villagers begin fastening trip-wires to the remaining buildings.

Pretty much standard these days.

And then the story gets more interesting.

The company burning the trees and bombarding the forest with hideous poison has responded, in turn, with a massive lawsuit:

Gunns stunned Australia’s conservation community by filing a 216-page, $6.3 million (AU) claim against a group of activists and organizations, including Geraghty. Gunns, the world's largest woodchip exporter, claimed that the group had cost the company millions and demanded their money back. The most costly allegation: environmentalists conspired to pressure Japanese buyers out of doing business with Gunns. "The demands were to be accompanied by threats express and implied," reads the writ, "of adverse publicity, consumer boycotts, and direct action against the Japanese customers and all of their operations."  For corporate campaign activists, all those tactics are fairly standard fare. Gunns, however, is asking the courts to declare such activity illegal.

Surreal enough?  It gets better:

... It’s not just activists and politicians who are getting sued — Gunns is also going after doctors who complain about potential health risks. In 2002, Dr. Frank Nicklason raised concerns about the possible contamination in massive woodpiles left on a harbor wharf, and called for an independent analysis. What he got instead was a letter from Gunns saying he had "recklessly, irresponsibly and negligently" misused his position as a medical practitioner to draw attention to "supposed health risks existing in the local community." He has also now been SLAPPed [a term for lawsuits filed to suppress dissent] with a potentially large fine, raising alarm in the medical community. As the Australian Medical Association's president told the Australian Financial Times: "Our Hippocratic oath demands we investigate any possible cause of disease, whatever that may be — tobacco, asbestos or any other concerns. It would be a dangerous development if doctors faced legal action any time they raised concerns about public health risks."

So, uh, yeah.  That's kind of a big deal.

... "The implications are huge," says Geoff Law, Tasmanian Campaign Coordinator for The Wilderness Society. "It will change the landscape for all social change and protest movements in Australia."

... As another of the defendants, Dr. Bob Brown, an Australian Senator for the Greens Party representing Tasmania, explains, "The implications are enormous. If Gunns is successful, it would echo through all the legal systems of the English-speaking world. It would mean that criticizing a corporation could land you in bankruptcy."

Granted, something happening in Tasmania might seem far away to North American readers.  It ain't.

Remember Oprah's libel trial for simply criticizing the beef industry?  The notion of using the courts to institute corporate dominion over free speech is a long-standing one, and while it's not yet a well-refined strategy, there are plently of folks who have not only sold their souls but brag about the price they got for it.   You can bet they're still doing the R&D.  This is not going away.

Long-term, the WTO also already has mechanisms to punish countries for being too aggressive in defending their citizens' rights (this can be categorized as "restraint of trade") from the multinational leviathans.

Wall Street types, in fact, seem to love this sort of thing:

So far, the markets seem to be rewarding Gunns for their corporate buccaneering. Their stocks soared to an all time high of $4.56 on news of the complaints.

There's reason to hope that the Aussie legal system will eventually do the right thing.  But long-term... just a reminder of what the hell sane people are up against.