Former leader of the Australian Greens, Bob Brown, has written to the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank expressing his foundation’s support for the bank’s refusal to finance logging of Tasmania’s magnificent natural forests and wildlife habitats. Here is his letter:

Richard Fennell
Chief Executive Officer
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank

Dear Mr. Fennell,

The Bendigo and Adelaide Bank deserves public admiration for its policy of not aiding businesses robbing future Australians of their economic and environmental security through atmospheric pollution which accelerates global heating and its consequences such as the Los Angeles fires.

Tasmania’s native forest logging industry is a fraction of the state’s logging industry. But it is the single biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses from our island. It also involves the flattening and incineration of wildlife habitat, a primary cause of so many species, including the critically-endangered Swift Parrot and vulnerable Tasmanian Masked Owl being sent towards extinction.

Bob Brown Foundation is just 12 years old, has 30 full-time employees and a budget near $4 million, and is growing rapidly. We are pleased to be banking with your ethical company rather than those that foster greenhouse gas pollution through burning both fossilised and living forests.

I note that the Tasmanian minister for logging, Eric Abetz, condemns your banks’ fine ethical standards. That is his right. He is also more proficient at blackguarding environmentalists than presenting any scientific rebuttal of the impacts of the native forest industry. He is highlighting the reality in modern Australia that much of the business community has moved ahead of old-party politics in addressing the environmental crises of our age.

He might have revealed that the small logging company he is promoting is an ‘avid supporter’ of his own political party.

Our foundation opposes the import of native forest products from other countries and remembers Eric Abetz flying to Sarawak to tell the suffering Indigenous people there that logging of their rainforests was good for them.

We congratulate your bank and are pleased to know that our investment will not finance greater loss of Tasmania’s magnificent remnant forests and wildlife.

Yours sincerely,

Bob Brown
President
Bob Brown Foundation