Bob Brown says the Western Australian government must clear the air on the deliberate destruction of an iconic peppermint eucalypt tree in the state’s Wellington National Park. After consultations with National Parks, the tree was destroyed though it had huge significance for Aboriginal people, environmentalists who campaigned 25 years ago to save it, and the tourism industry.

Brown, as a Greens senator, visited the tree when environmentalists were defending it from imminent logging in 1999 and it was subsequently protected in the national park.

“I am horrified. How this centuries-old tree and its wildlife could be destroyed by official action is beyond belief. The premier and minister should open up. In terms of the laws of nature, this destruction is criminal. It comes less than a year after the ancient Lisa’s Tree, which harboured critically-endangered Swift Parrots, was cut down to spite environmentalists at Snow Hill in northeast Tasmania,” Bob Brown said