In my opinion there are
no 'good guys' in this story. There is no excuse for the behaviour of either side. One was unfairly provocative. The other was unnecessarily violent. It seems that both were being unlawful.
I do not believe that there is any excuse for either side, and I cannot condone the actions of either side. However, I do feel some sympathy for
both sides.
That kind of deliberately provocative action, especially when it affects somebody's income is twisted. They should be peacefully targeting forestry management, if they have a problem with forestry strategy and action. They should not be deliberately and repeatedly targeting a contract worker who makes no forestry decisions but merely takes on jobs that are on offer.
The response by the forestry operator was unnecessarily violent in the extreme, and while we expect more extreme responses after extreme provocation, I think people ought to have more self control (and perhaps ought to have seen the trap waiting), and to better understand the use of peaceful and calm responses.
Having said that, these are just my opinions, and I've never been in exactly either situation myself.
Whos_asking99 wrote:this was just a way for the Greens to get more publicity
It is inappropriate to state (either implicitly or explicitly) that these protesters are in any way aligned with a political party, unless there is irrefutable proof of that. It would be more appropriate to refer to 'conservationists' or to 'people with green views' (with a lower case 'g' not an upper case 'G').
Note that although I'm a (peaceful) conservationist, I have no sympathy for the Green party whatsoever. I would also expect that there are also disruptive conservationist protesters who do not have any alignment (official or otherwise) with any political party.
The two things are very, very different. There are people out there who very much want to preserve old growth forests
and who wish to have nothing to do with the Green party (I'm one of them). Please do not get the two things confused.
Although I'm sure that the Green party is happy with and condones
some conservationist protestor actions, they may or may not have anything to do with organising any particular action. Remember that conservationists existed independently of the Greens, long before the Greens existed at all. The Green party took their name from the conservationist 'green' views, not the other way around.