Brown Brown fronts court over Snow Hill trespass charge after arrest in swift parrot forests

Australian environmentalist Bob Brown says he will fight a charge of trespass after he was arrested defending swift parrot habitat at Snow Hill.

Australian environmentalist Bob Brown being arrested at Snow Hill in November 2022, while protesting the logging of swift parrot habitat. Picture: Bob Brown Foundation

Australian environmentalist Bob Brown says he will fight a charge of trespass after he was arrested defending swift parrot habitat at Snow Hill.

Dr Brown, along with fellow activists Kristy Alger and Karen Weldrick, faced the Hobart Magistrates Court on Wednesday in their first appearance since the forest action on November 8 last year.

Another three Bob Brown Foundation protesters Darren Harvey, Michael Montgomery and Celeste Bartel also faced court over a separate action in southern forests earlier this year, also claimed to be habitat of the critically-endangered bird.

None of the six have yet entered pleas and will return to court on July 20.

Karen Weldrick, Bob Brown and Kristy Algar outside the Hobart Magistrates Court. Picture: Amber Wilson

Outside court, Dr Brown told reporters he would enter a plea of not guilty after last year’s logging protest in the north-east highlands.

“Swift parrots were nesting in the trees and they’re logging it. When you log the trees and bring down the nests, you move the birds closer to extinction,” he said.

“If you read the national environmental laws, to damage the habitat of a vulnerable or rare creature is illegal, but they get around this by having an exemption for forestry.”

Dr Brown said with Victoria now announcing the state would end native forest logging this December, it was time for Tasmania to do the same.

The swift parrot.

He also said the majority of Tasmanians wanted the state’s forests and wildlife protected.

“As I was arrested, two swift parrots flew over our heads,” he said.

“Yet it wasn’t the loggers or Forestry Tasmania that got arrested, it was people defending the national wish that we protect these rare and endangered creatures.”

Dr Brown said he was arrested for trespass after standing in an area he believed had been illegally logged.

Ms Weldrick and Ms Alger said they were arrested over the same charge after they chained themselves to a piece of logging machinery.

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