Wild Wielangta

During Senate Estimates questioning 20th October, Senator Bob Brown was at pains to ensure that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is made aware of his responsibility to take action to protect the swift parrot, under the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement (RFA), given that:

‘…it (the RFA) states that the Commonwealth and Tasmania agree that the:
… application of management strategies and management prescriptions developed under Tasmania’s Forest Management Systems, protect rare and threatened fauna.
And Forestry Tasmania has stated publicly in the last week that it intends to log one of the richest nesting sites for this species known after the current nesting season.’

(Hansard 20th October 2008, F&PA 75, our additions in brackets and emphasis in bold)

Senator John Faulkner undertook to ‘…make the Prime Minister’s office aware of that (matter) urgently, and draw it to the Prime Minister’s attention appropriately’.
(Hansard 20th October 2008, F&PA 78, our additions in brackets)

We maintain a watching brief. Read Bob’s media full release below for more detailed information.

Wielangta update

A new report on the Swift Parrot concludes that the species may now be critically endangered, not just endangered. The only evidence of its population level, winter surveys on the mainland, shows a dramatic decline in Swift Parrot sightings since 2003. Logging of its Tasmanian nesting and foraging habitat is the prime threat to the species.

The report calls on Prime Minister Rudd to use his powers under the Regional Forest Agreement to halt logging in coupes containing Swift Parrot breeding habitat until a landscape scale protection plan is in place. Read the report at www.on-trial.info.

Who is responsible for the fate of the Swift Parrot?

At Senate estimates this week, representatives of the Prime Minister’s department maintained that the Environment Department has ‘main carriage’ of the Swift Parrot issue and that the Prime Minister had not been informed of it. (Transcripts are at http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/S11349.pdf, starting on p.73)

Over at the Environment Department, Minister Garrett says that the Tasmanian forest management agencies are responsible for protecting the Swift Parrot and he cannot intervene.

(http://www.abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/stories/2008/2397656.htm)

In Tasmania, Ken Jeffreys, speaking for Forestry Tasmania, says there are 391 000 hectares of suitable habitat for the Swift Parrot and that 1000 pairs only need 2000 hectares to breed in! ()

Meanwhile at Wielangta, Forestry Tasmania has agreed to suspend logging in coupe 19D until the Swift Parrots have finished nesting. That’s a reprieve of about 3 months!

Only Prime Minister Rudd and Tasmanian Premier Bartlett can untangle this knot. In 2007, then Prime Minister Howard and Premier Lennon changed the Regional Forest Agreement overnight in response to the Justice Marshall’s Wielangta judgment. Now they can change it to protect the Swift Parrot – or Prime Minister Rudd can terminate the Agreement so that responsibility for threatened species in Tasmanian forests reverts to the federal Environment Minister.

Bob Brown and Margaret Blakers