Conservationists have won a temporary injunction to stop logging in an area of forest south of Hobart they say is breeding habitat for the critically endangered swift parrot.
The Tasmanian supreme court granted the injunction on Wednesday afternoon pending a hearing of the legal challenge brought by the Bob Brown Foundation.
The case has been brought against Forestry Tasmania, which is owned by the Tasmanian government and trades as Sustainable Timber Tasmania, the Forest Practices Authority and a forest practices officer.
The case is challenging a decision to authorise a logging plan in a single forestry coupe, alleging this occurred despite recordings being provided of swift parrots in breeding habitat in the area.
The foundation alleges the logging should not have been authorised.
“This is a huge win for Tasmania’s forests and wildlife,” Bob Brown said of the court’s decision on Wednesday.
“This is both gratifying and a terrible indictment of the state and federal governments.”
The date for a full hearing of the case in Hobart is still to be set.
“If the court upholds our case, we expect action to be taken against those who will have plundered this native forest illegally,” Brown said.
The foundation has launched similar challenges to logging in swift parrot habitat in forest in other parts of the state.
Brown said the foundation was “taking on what we believe is the illegality of the destruction of rare species habitat across Tasmania”.
Suzette Weeding, the general manager of conservation and land management at Sustainable Timber Tasmania, said the state-owned company was confident that forestry operations carried out in the coupe late last year were “compliant with the Tasmanian forest practices system and the Tasmanian forest practices code”.
“Sustainable Timber Tasmania welcomes the opportunity for the matter to be decided by the court,” she said.
“Sustainable Timber Tasmania recognises its responsibility as land manager and continues to implement conservation outcomes for the swift parrot on permanent timber production zone land”.
In a separate case in 2021, the Bob Brown Foundation lost a legal challenge to native forest logging in Tasmania that claimed the industry’s logging was at odds with federal conservation laws.
Lawyers for the foundation said the agreement lacked an enforceable requirement that the state must protect threatened species, particularly the critically endangered swift parrot.
But the judgment, which Tasmanian senator Jonno Duniam said was “a win for Australia’s forest industry”, found the forestry agreement was legally binding.
Last year, researchers modelled new population projections for the critically endangered swift parrot, finding the outlook for the parrot was getting worse.
