Wilderness Society takes urgent legal action to protect Tasmania’s forests and swift parrots

The Wilderness Society has lodged an urgent application for pre-action discovery with the Tasmanian Supreme Court seeking the “forest practices plans” from Forestry Tasmania (trading as Sustainable Timber Tasmania (STT)) for the Snow Hill logging coupes at the Eastern Tiers. The matter is now set down to be heard on Wednesday 16 November.

“Swift parrot habitat—feeding and breeding trees—have been deliberately destroyed by Tasmanian Government logging over the last few weeks, with many more hectares of beautiful forest about to be, as swift parrots are feeding and breeding throughout the area,” said Tom Allen for the Wilderness Society.

“We believe that STT is unlawfully logging forests, including swift parrot habitat, in the Eastern Tiers. It has refused to make its logging plans public. And it has been refusing to publish these plans. The community has a right to know the fate of these local forests, habitat for species being driven to extinction.

“Tasmania’s forests are globally significant. The swift parrot, the fastest parrot in the world and one of only three migratory parrot species, is unequivocally being driven towards extinction by the Tasmanian Government’s continued logging of its habitat.

“It’s a basic community right that the community knows who the decision-maker is on key public policy questions—which the logging of globally high conservation value forests undeniably is—and what decisions are being made about them.”

For further comment contact Tom Allen on 0434 614 323