Tasmania’s Premier Rockliff is deliberately sending the critically endangered Swift Parrot to extinction, environmentalists claim after exposing logging in Tasmania’s southern forests with known nest sites.
“We are infuriated about finding logging in Swift Parrot nesting habitat time after time. Premier Rockliff is overseeing the logging of critically endangered species habitats. His government is focused on protecting the logging industry rather than preventing the Swift Parrot from going extinct,” Bob Brown Foundation’s Jenny Weber said.
“These forests are notoriously known as an important breeding ground for the species. The forests are one of the few places where Swift Parrots were observed consistently present and breeding by the species experts,” said Charley Gros, Campaign Scientist with Bob Brown Foundation.
“Swift Parrots are pebbles in the shoe of Forestry Tasmania and they are clearly targeting forests to get rid of them forever,” said Charley Gros.
“Logging must cease immediately. The importance of this forest for the species was known by all. Forestry Tasmania is pretending to prevent the extinction of the species and it’s a blatant lie,” Jenny Weber said.
“This forest that is being logged is at Mt Tongatabu in southern Tasmania. While logging was prevented nearby by residents in late 2022, the loggers moved to behind the mountain where they thought no one would find the destruction,” Jenny Weber said.
Logging is the biggest threat to the survival of the Swift Parrot population. It is time for Forestry Tasmania to be prosecuted for ongoing Swift Parrot decimation.
We have called for logging to cease work immediately and replant Swift Parrot favourable tree species across all the logged habitat that has been wantonly destroyed for decades.