Bob Brown Foundation says MONA entity Kirsha Kaechele’ plan to save 3 or 4 per cent of Tasmania’s native forests and their wildlife has the integrity of a Picasso in the Ladies’ Room. Ms Kaechele’s plan, with some provisional logging industry support, but none from environment groups, collapsed last week when The Wilderness Society also disowned it, Bob Brown said today.

“We go along with the opening two sentences of Kirsha’s Vision Statement: ‘No generation owns a forest. We inherit forests from those who came before us and protect them for those who follow.’ But her agreement with loggers that protecting 3 or 4 per cent, labelled ‘old growth’ by the industry, leaves 96 per cent of the forests to be clearfelled and incinerated along with their wildlife. Ending this tragedy is not performance art, it is a huge and serious challenge for Tasmania and Australia in an age of unprecedented environmental destruction.”

“Behind Kaechele’s plan is more taxpayer money going to logging corporations at a time when the government can’t keep our hospitals viable. If there is money to come out of ending the unnecessary forest destruction, it should go to the Palawa people and include plans for them to show and interpret the remaining forest lands for expanding the job-rich tourism and hospitality industries which are key to Tasmania’s future,” Brown said.

Ben Quilty, one of Australia’s most celebrated artists, listed as a signatory to the MONA shared forest statement has this morning stated he has not signed it, “After receiving hundreds of millions of dollars of government subsidies from the Tasmanian taxpayers, the Tasmanian Forest Industry wants more money to ‘transition’ away from cutting down and burning ancient rainforests. I did not sign Kirsha Kaechele’s Forest Economic Congress document. I have nothing to do with it. I will take my advice from the Bob Brown Foundation,” said Ben Quilty.