13,000 hectares of Swift Parrot breeding habitat on Tasmania’s three-year logging schedule
Bob Brown Foundation campaigners have written to Premier Rockliff today urging him to prevent logging that is about to proceed in a Swift Parrot forest in Southern Tasmania. On the eve of Guardian Australia’s Bird of the Year final poll, where the critically endangered species is in the running to win, the foundation is calling for immediate protection of Swift Parrot habitat in Tasmania.
“I have just visited the threatened forest in southern Tasmania after we were notified of Swift Parrots feeding in a proposed logging area. In the Kermandie region, near World Heritage listed Hartz Mountains National Park, native forests are imminently threatened by logging. This area of tall eucalyptus with a wet understorey of lush green rainforest is overlooked by beautiful Hartz peak in the Hartz Mountains National Park,” Erik Hayward, Bob Brown Foundation Campaigner said.
“Today, we have written to Premier Rockliff, Forestry Tasmania and Forest Practices Authority calling for the proposed logging in this coupe, and all Swift Parrot habitats, to be called off. Our new Swift Parrot records in this threatened forest have been listed on the government Natural Values Atlas database.
This year, the Swift Parrot, that makes an incredible migration to lutruwita / Tasmania to breed, is finding the very habitat it has travelled so far to nest in, being reduced to piles of waste. We will be resuming our Swift Parrot citizen science project to survey, find, study, document and report this incredible bright green parrot under threat and we will take action to defend their breeding habitats from destruction,” Erik Hayward said.
“The Swift Parrot is being pushed to extinction by government-sanctioned logging. Their only breeding habitats on Earth have been consistently logged while they were here breeding last season, logging continued while they were away for their winter feeding on the mainland and now the parrots are returning to less habitat and more forests scheduled for logging,” Jenny Weber, Bob Brown Foundation’s Campaign Manager Jenny Weber said.
“Around Australia, as people are waiting to see if the critically endangered Swift Parrot wins Australia’s Bird of the Year, we are preparing our summer campaign to defend the parrots in their only breeding habitat on Earth. Forestry Tasmania has 13,000 hectares of Swift Parrot breeding habitat on their logging schedule which is an ecocidal crime, 14 years after it was listed as critically endangered due to the logging of its native forest habitat,” Jenny Weber said.