The Wilderness Society Tasmania is taking the Forest Practices Authority and Forestry Tasmania to the Supreme Court over logging plans in some of the last old-growth forests, where critically endangered swift parrots breed in Lutruwita / Tasmania’s Huon Valley.
Represented by Environmental Justice Australia, The Wilderness Society Tasmania is seeking to challenge decisions of the Forest Practices Authority to extend three Forest Practices Plans beyond their legal five-year lifetime.
The plans authorise logging in three coupes of old-growth forest, putting critical swift parrot breeding habitat at risk of being clearfelled as soon as this breeding season.
Hughie Nicklason, forest campaigner at the Wilderness Society, said:
“These forests have taken many hundreds of years to grow, and they are some of the last places critically endangered swift parrots have left to breed.
“Forestry Tasmania is pushing to continue logging these under approvals that have run past their five-year legal limit. We say that’s unlawful.
“These coupes are just a few examples of what we believe is a systemic failure to adhere to their own broken rulebook. It’s likely that other logging plans have been approved and extended in similar circumstances where logging has already occurred or is imminent.
“These practices are emblematic of the system at large. Forestry Tasmania and the Forestry Practices Authority have repeatedly failed Tasmanians and this island’s iconic environment - we are fighting to ensure this mismanagement comes to an end.”
Alice Hardinge, Tasmanian Campaigns Manager, the Wilderness Society said:
“Wilderness Society Tasmania shouldn’t have to go to court to protect the habitat of critically endangered species. But when governments fail to do everything in their power to prevent extinction, we have a responsibility to step up and act.
"The proposed devolution of federal environmental responsibilities to state agencies raises serious concerns. If the FPA cannot properly protect threatened species under Tasmania’s already weak environmental laws, how can Tasmanians have confidence that it will be able to protect matters of national environmental significance?”
Environmental Justice Australia’s senior lawyer Natalie Hogan said:
“Our client will argue the Tasmanian forest regulator failed to comply with its own Forest Practices Code when it extended plans to clearfell critical swift parrot breeding habitat.
“Time limits are a crucial legal safeguard. They ensure logging plans are properly reviewed and continue to meet legal and environmental requirements.
“With fewer than 750 critically endangered swift parrots remaining, proper scrutiny of plans to log some of their last breeding habitat is critical. Environmental safeguards only protect nature when they are followed.”
If the Wilderness Society succeeds, the decisions will be quashed and the logging plans will have to be remade using current threatened species data and up-to-date swift parrot surveys that could protect precious forests and habitat from being logged.
ENDS
