Bob Brown Foundation fights for urgent logging injunction to protect swift parrot habitats
The Bob Brown Foundation has taken to the Federal Court in its fight to halt logging in swift parrot habitats this breeding season.
Police & Courts
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THE SWIFT parrot’s nesting and foraging trees in the eastern tiers will not be logged over the coming month, with an “understanding” to be reached ahead of a major Federal Court clash.
On Tuesday, lawyers for the Bob Brown Foundation indicated they would speak to counsel for Sustainable Timber Tasmania - with a view to maintaining the “status quo” in the weeks leading up to a full-day injunction hearing set down for January 2021.
The foundation has lodged an injunction in the Federal Court to halt logging in three coupes in the eastern tiers, inland from the Freycinet National Park.
It’s an area covering 3214ha of native forest where the group says the critically endangered birds have settled in to breed this season.
The court action comes after Dr Brown was arrested twice in two days last week when his protests prevented logging at a forestry site at Lost Falls, located in the eastern tiers.
On Tuesday, Ron Merkel QC told Federal Court judge Duncan Kerr that the foundation had encountered difficulty obtaining information about which coupes were slated for logging.
He said there was “extreme urgency” in the injunction application because STT hadn’t revealed whether or not it planned to log the coupes in question over the summer.
Shaun McElwaine SC, acting for Sustainable Timber Tasmania, said old-growth trees likely to be used for swift parrot nests were in “exclusion zones”.
Justice Kerr said he understood those types of hollow “stag trees” used for nesting and a type of eucalypts important for swift parrot foraging would not be damaged before a full hearing could be held in January.
Lawyers for both sides will speak outside of court to ensure the “status quo is maintained for the time being”.
The injunction case follows a previous Federal Court hearing earlier this month, during which the foundation waged an historic war against the legitimacy of Tasmania’s Regional Forest Agreement in the Federal Court.
The foundation hopes its challenge will end native forest logging in Tasmania for good, with a decision expected in early 2021.
The court case, which the foundation dubbed the “Great Forest Case”, was held on the same day that researchers revealed there could be fewer than 300 swift parrots remaining in the wild.
The injunction case will return to court on January 11.
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