Bob Brown Foundation Stays Swift Parrot Logging

Media release – Bob Brown Foundation, 2 October 2020

Forestry Tasmania gives Federal Court commitment not to log 19 coupes of Swift Parrot habitat.

In the biggest breakthrough for the conservation of Tasmania’s remaining native forests since 170,000 hectares was protected as World Heritage in 2013, Forestry Tasmania has given the Federal Court a commitment it will not log Swift Parrot habitat as planned in the coming year.

“This is a significant win for endangered species in Tasmania’s wild forests in this age of human-caused extinction,” Bob Brown said. “It is also a tribute to the determined integrity of the doyen of Swift Parrot science, Dr Matt Webb who has been courageously endeavouring to protect these birds for decades. And it is vindication for our foundation, backed by thousands of supporters, in taking action against Forestry Tasmania, backed by environment ministers in Hobart and Canberra. They would have been logging the nesting and feeding sites of one of the most endangered creatures under their care.”

“We will be abroad in the Tasmanian forests, as friends of the Swifties, to make sure no other forests they depend upon are destroyed by the loggers under agreement from these compliant environment ministers.”

“This is a case of community action doing the job of ineffective and disinterested ministers who neither understand nor care about their duty to protect Australia’s fragile and disintegrating wildlife habitats. Nor do they understand the enormous public opinion which will gain great relief from today’s court outcomes for a native species threatened with extinction.”

Media release – Bob Brown Foundation, 1 October 2020

FOUNDATION’S URGENT ACTION TO SAVE ICONIC BIRD

The Bob Brown Foundation yesterday applied in the Federal Court for an injunction to stop Sustainable Timbers Tasmania destroying the feeding and breeding trees essential to Tasmania’s critically endangered Swift parrot.

If granted, the injunction would stop Sustainable Timbers Tasmania from logging the coupes of forest vital to the Swift parrot for nesting and for feeding on the nectar of its favoured eucalypt blossoms.

The Swift parrot is the fastest parrot on Earth and, with the critically endangered Orange-bellied parrot which also migrates from the mainland to Tasmania each year to breed, is the only migratory parrot on the planet. It is currently flying over Bass Strait to breed in Tasmania’s coastal forests after over-wintering in Victorian and New South Wales woodlands

“Just days after David Attenborough’s heart-rending appeal to humanity not to destroy Earth’s natural realm, this action is taken because we believe that STT is acting illegally. It is unnecessarily destroying the very trees the Swift parrot needs to nest and regenerate,” Bob Brown said. “And with the Federal Government’s own appointed inquirer, Graeme Samuel, pointing to the failure of legislation being used to protect nature, here is a test of our ability to halt the greatest onrush of extinctions in human history.”

Meanwhile the foundation is also embarking on a nationwide publicity and political campaign to end the logging in all of Australia’s publicly-owned native forests. These contain many endangered bird, animal, insect and plant species. “Our aim is to help get the public much more active to save its remaining native forests which are so critical for the survival of Australia’s species like the Baudin cockatoo, the koala, Leadbeater’s possum and the Swift parrot. Australia has enough plantations to meet its wood needs,” the foundation’s Campaign Manager Jenny Weber said.

“The Australian Native Forest Declaration is the first of its kind in our nation. It is an urgent call to the Prime Minister, Opposition leader and all our Federal parliamentarians to use Commonwealth power’s to protect our nation’s native forests and their wildlife with secure and permanent protection,” Jenny Weber said.

Editor’s note: Despite the government business enterprise rebranding itself as Sustainable Timbers Tasmania, its legal name is still Forestry Tasmania.