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Overall Summary

Anna Krien’s book, Into the Woods: The Battle for Tasmania’s Forests, is a compelling piece of fiction and journalism. It tells the story of people living in Tasmania and their relationship to the environment. At first, it was about activists and loggers, but ultimately became about a woodchipping company having too much control over government officials on the island.

The play “Into the Woods” starts with a description of how devils are treated in Tasmania. A local man, Geoff, allows Krien to stay with him and tells her about how mistreated they are by people who try to kill them with their cars. It becomes clear that this issue is larger than activists or loggers because the entire state seems to have a flippant attitude towards nature.

In the next section of the novel, Krien investigates a group called Ratbags. She stays with them in The Pink Palace and eats food they gather from dumpsters. They’re also referred to as Feral by their opposition. These ratbags are misunderstood, but they want to preserve patches of nature one piece at a time. Most of them are on welfare; they’re mostly educated people who seek to protect their homeland. They know that what they do is aimed at the wrong people – it directly affects sawmill and logging company workers – but it’s all that they can do: if only there was some way for these activists to get a grander government body’s attention!

The section entitled “Loggers” covers the logging industry. The author interviews loggers at a bar to get their take on the issue. They tell her that they love their job and how much it has changed over time, but are worried about being portrayed in a negative light by environmentalists who think they’re destroying the environment. However, she notes that both sides are extremely loyal to what they believe and says “the forest debate is a minefield.” It’s very hard to navigate because each side has statistics that negate the other side’s arguments.

Krien attempts to figure out Gunns Limited, a major forestry company in Australia. They ignore her and she can only get information from Tasmanians or by researching the company herself. What she learns is that Gunns has close ties with the government and media (so they’re always portrayed positively) which gives them immense tax benefits. This keeps them in control of Tasmania more specifically Australia as a whole. In one chapter titled “Gunns 20,” Krien explains how they sued 20 people who were against what they stood for, including Bob Brown, a politician running on an environmental platform calling out Gunns for their shady business dealings. Because of this lawsuit other greenies were afraid to take on Gunns because it would cost too much money and time so instead they just gave up trying to stop them

In “Groundswell,” Krien details the corruption that was happening in Tasmania. She talks about Bill Manning, a forestry insider who was ridiculed for revealing that most of the deforestation actually happened illegally. Other activists also try to stop this immense attack on the environment and how they do it. The section ends with Krien recounting how Jim Bacon (former premier of Tasmania) urged corporations to pull funding from Gunns because cultural views were finally shifting in the right direction.

The next section deals with the Gunns’ sawmill, which was rushed through the system. The government ignored all evidence that suggested that a mill would have a negative impact on tourism and wine production in Tasmania. However, Gunns was able to use its power to achieve what it wanted at the cost of Tasmanians.