Police have arrived at a forest protest in southern Tasmania, where concerned community members have been occupying the site of logging in critically endangered Swift Parrot’s breeding habitat.
Bob Brown Foundation is calling for an urgent end to logging in Swift Parrot habitat.
“Today’s protest is in forests that the Swift Parrot is occupying during the breeding season. We are in coupe KD022C where our Foundation has recorded Swift Parrots more than 20 times inside the coupe boundary. The first one on the 28th of September before the logging and parrots have been consistently recorded since then,” said Erik Hayward, Bob Brown Foundation Campaigner.
The Kermandie forests have been the centre of protests for the past two weeks as forest defenders highlight the ongoing destruction of Swift Parrot habitat just as the birds are returning to the only place on Earth where they breed.
“In an ecological timeframe, this is the final last few minutes before the swift parrot becomes a relic of the past if logging in their breeding habitat is allowed to continue. Failing to stop the logging, the parrots will be banished into extinction by the greed of our federal and state governments, carried out by the unsustainable destruction of Forestry Tasmania, and sanctioned by the Forest Practices Authority whose responsibility should be to protect, not eradicate species,” Erik Hayward said.
“What is happening on the Kermandie Divide is a symptom of how Forestry Tasmania and the Rockliff government plan to continue pushing new roads into wild areas, crush endangered species habitat and chip the future of our carbon stores. We cannot simply watch on as this vastly unknown world is plundered beyond survival,” Erik Hayward said.