Saving the giants

Peaceful direct action halts destruction of endangered Swift Parrot habitat (photo by Ramji).

In May, the Victorian government announced the end of native forest logging after nearly two centuries of mounting destruction, which has cut the greatest trees of all, Eucalyptus regnans, down to 1–2% of their natural extent in the state. One Gippsland tree, measured by a surveyor in the 1880s at 134 metres after it was felled, remains the loftiest living being ever known to exist on our planet.

This belated good news from Victoria comes in the wake of the Western Australian government having already ended native forest logging, but leaves the loggers continuing to raze the great forests of New South Wales and Tasmania. In Queensland, thousands of hectares of woodlands are destroyed each year for commercial interests. And, of course, that means razing – obliterating – the vital habitat of scores of wildlife species listed as threatened with extinction by both state and federal ministers for the environment.

Avoidable extinction

The list of creatures that have been driven toward extinction by government-backed logging includes koalas, cockatoos, greater gliders, honeyeaters, Leadbeater’s Possums (the Victorian faunal emblem) and Powerful Owls, as well as rare plants including orchids.

Before the NSW elections this year, just after koalas were listed as vulnerable to extinction, Labor promised to create the Great Koala National Park in the state’s northern forests. At the time of writing, with Labor now in office, that promise is unfulfilled. The loggers are within the proposed park boundaries smashing down precious places, not least koala habitats, with the new Labor government’s backing. Elsewhere, down both sides of the Great Divide, forests continue to fall to chainsaws.

In Tasmania, the nation’s poorest state, and after more than one billion dollars of taxpayers’ money has gone to subsidise the loggers, both Liberal and Labor parties are firmly behind the ongoing flattening and incineration of native forests, largely to feed the woodchip export stream to China and Taiwan. This is decimating the habitat of critically-endangered Tasmanian Devils and Swift Parrots, the Tasmanian Masked Owls (the world’s largest barn owls) and hundreds of other creatures.

This destruction is endorsed by voters at federal and state level; at the last federal election more than 80% of people voted for parties endorsing the logging. However, this involves a perplexing disjuncture. All the opinion polls show that 70–80% of Australians want our native forests protected. The only way to make sense of this is to assume that hip pocket issues rate more highly than the environment and our wildlife.

The second conclusion that can be fairly drawn is that Australian culture cares more for these times than it does for its children and grandchildren. In our materialist society, it is a crime to rob a bank. However if you are robbing future generations, you can expect a government subsidy.

That analysis aside, it is obvious that the Albanese government could end native forest logging tomorrow. That would mean legislating to overturn the Howard-era Regional Forest Agreements, which have excused logging from national forest legislation – the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act – just as an incoming New Zealand Labour government abolished native forest logging back in 2002.

It’s time

Regardless of the party politics and ingrained culture, the people are on the move. In the last year, hundreds have been arrested for peacefully protesting; for getting themselves in the way of the loggers’ powerful machines. This has led to a growing public anxiety that the logging should be stopped and that, in turn, has led to vested interests in resource extraction, not least logging, to lobby politicians to silence the forest defenders.

Every logging state has now passed laws to criminalise environmentalists. Standing in front of a bulldozer that’s smashing down a life-filled forest is now a crime, risking either a jail sentence or a massive fine. For example, in Tasmania, citizens face no greater penalties if they take a shotgun next door and terrorise the neighbours. The Tasmanian laws go a step further: any conservation group, like our Bob Brown Foundation that has organised peaceful protection of native forests, may in the future be criminalised by the laws. That is, such conservation groups face being closed down.

At stake in our beautiful country is an ancient, living forest heritage with which First Australians bonded thousands of years ago. In just the last two centuries, our modern materialist society has destroyed most of it, including most of the forest-dwelling creatures.

Now the challenge is with all of us. There are more than enough plantations to meet all of Australia’s wood needs, so are we going to be the generation that puts a stop to the forest carnage? It will take courage and commitment, not least for those at the front lines in the forests, but we are on our way to that historic achievement – and PM Albanese is the key.

We invite our Diggers members to join the movement to save our native forests by signing Bob Brown’s Native Forest Declaration.

Written by Bob Brown, environmentalist, former medical doctor and politician.