AUSTRALIA: By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor

Trees from one of the world's most ancient forests are being felled for timber after a protest camp, in place for two years, was broken up by police.

Huge eucalyptus logs were last week trucked out of the Upper Florentine Valley in Tasmania, Australia, under police escort. The forest has been the focus of a long, bitter battle between environmentalists and loggers.

More than 30 people have been arrested in an argument that pitches the needs of the planet and local wildlife against the economic benefits of the timber industry. And though the logging has begun, the protests continue.

Upper Florentine, an old growth temperate rainforest in the south of the state, contains some of the world's tallest trees and last year the United Nations' World Heritage Committee called for it to be protected. But the government agency, Forestry Tasmania, has persisted with plans to bulldoze a 4km road through the trees and log 50 hectares of forest. The only thing that has been standing in its way has been a determined camp of protesters.

Early in the morning of January 12, police stormed the camp and evicted the protesters from their array of huts and makeshift shelters. Five others were in perches high up trees, three were chained to old cars cemented into the ground and one was down a tunnel.

Among the protesters was Rosie Wordsworth, 21, who grew up in Glenurquhart in the Scottish Highlands but has lived in Australia for the last two years. She said: "We were watching our camp being crushed, knowing the worst was yet to come, and that the old, giant trees we were trying to protect might only have days to live."

Despite further mass protests, the first sawn logs were driven out of the forest on Wednesday.

"It's been a pretty emotional time for us all," said Wordsworth. "I just want the government to wake up and stop this barbaric and old-fashioned practice. Climate change is affecting us all and we need to look to the future and realise the importance of these massive carbon sinks."

Over the last two years the camp had suffered a series of attacks from local loggers, she alleged, including the firebombing of two vehicles and a hut, slashed tyres, smashed windscreens, threats of physical violence and rape, and numerous assaults.

Nevertheless, Wordsworth said she felt privileged to have spent so much time in such a spectacular place. "It's like nothing I've ever seen in Scotland," she said. "I can only imagine what our beautiful country looked like hundreds of years ago, before we lost most of our native forests."

Christo Mills, from the Tasmanian campaign group Still Wild Still Threatened, said: "The logging, burning and woodchipping of these irreplaceable carbon-dense forests is an international disgrace." According to the protesters, more than three-quarters of the trees will be turned into wood chips.

Forestry Tasmania said the logging would produce $2 million worth of timber and help sustain 6000 jobs. Only 10% of the Upper Florentine forest was available for logging, it said, with much of the remainder under protection.

The agency's manager, Steve Whiteley, said: "It's a really important milestone that the road's being used in this way and the contractors involved have done very well to get to this point it's great to see the road being used for employment in the valley."

He said forest workers had been "ambushed" by protesters. "We've had people quite distressed by the damage that they could have caused to someone," he said.