Bob Brown Foundation show a giant hundred year old tree burnt from logging burns

A giant tree, believed to a home for endangered wildlife has been burnt during logging burns according to the Bob Brown Foundation. See the pictures.

A giant tree, believed to be hundreds of years old and known to be a breeding ground for the endangered Swift Parrot has been burnt during logging burns according to the Bob Brown Foundation. Picture: Bob Brown Foundation

A giant tree known to be a breeding ground for the endangered Swift Parrot has been burnt by Sustainable Timber Tasmania, the Bob Brown Foundation claims.

The Foundation has released photos of a burnt giant eucalyptus tree, which is hundreds of years old, isolated from a forest that had been burnt in Southern Tasmania.

Veteran environmentalist Bob Brown said Sustainable Timber had instructions to protect the tree.

“Tasmania’s laws for protecting endangered wildlife go up in flames along with the forests,” he said.

The Bob Brown Foundation’s new website Forest Watch states 19ha of the Hopetoun landscape, where the giant tree was burnt, had been logged, with 20ha of the area proposed to be burnt.

A giant tree, believed to be hundreds of years old and known to be a breeding ground for the endangered Swift Parrot has been burnt during logging burns according to the Bob Brown Foundation. Picture: Bob Brown Foundation

“This Eucalyptus Regnans was isolated in a wasteland of destroyed native forests after recent logging, likely because it is over four metres in diameter,” campaign manager Jenny Weber said.

“The tree had been growing for hundreds of years and over the decades of rampant clear felling in Tasmania, it has been a hollow-bearing wildlife refuge for many species including Swift Parrots. Its surrounding forest was flattened and burnt over the past year.

“Forestry Tasmania’s clear-felling 99.99 per cent of the forest will sometimes leave a dismal handful of trees in a flattened graveyard. And then, when they come back a few months later to burn it, they often incinerate the remaining 0.01 per cent of the trees they left standing.”

A giant tree, believed to be hundreds of years old and known to be a breeding ground for the endangered Swift Parrot has been burnt during logging burns according to the Bob Brown Foundation. Picture: Bob Brown Foundation

Ms Weber is urging for the flattening, burning and destruction of Tasmania’s unique and “precious” forests, including the world’s tallest flowering plants, to stop.

“Tasmania’s government continues to deliberately light these fires,” she said.

“This tree appears to have lost all its top canopy and that will make its recovery very difficult. “We will monitor it in the future to see if it survives, but because of this torching it is vulnerable to dying.”

Sustainable Timber Tasmania has been asked for comment.