[Greens-Media] Tas Greens_Premier's Thought Bubble Betrays Parrots_C O'Connor MP

[greens at parliament.tas.gov.au]

THOUGHT-BUBBLE PREMIER BETRAYS ENDANGERED PARROTS

While Forestry Continues to Destroy Nesting Habitat

Cassy O'Connor MP
Greens Environment Spokesperson

Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Contact: State Parliamentary Offices of the Tasmanian Greens, (03) 6233
8300

www.tas.greens.org.au


The Tasmanian Greens today called on Minister for Primary Industries and
Forestry David Llewellyn to reveal how much progress has been made on
the Premier's State of the State commitment to plant 2,500 hectares of
foraging habitat for the critically endangered Swift Parrot over five
years, at a rate of 500 hectares every year.

Greens Environment spokesperson Cassy O'Connor MP said the Bartlett
Government has used the Premier's commitment to planting Swift Parrot
foraging habitat to justify their continued clearfelling and burning of
nesting habitat for the Parrot, but following the winter planting season
we discover that no land has been set aside for the promised planting,
and no trees have actually been planted.  

Ms O'Connor also said that the nesting habitat required by the Swift
Parrot is mature Eucalypt forest that is much older and very different
to the immature trees and forests that provide some Parrot foraging
habitat.  

"The Premier's State of the State commitment to planting 500 hectares of
foraging habitat for the Swift Parrot every year has turned out to be
yet another thought-bubble promise, seemingly forgotten as soon as it
passed his lips," said Ms O'Connor.

"We have just gone through one of the wettest, and best, planting
seasons for many years, and now we discover that no new trees have been
planted for Swift Parrot habitat because there is still no land set
aside for the plantings."

"Did the Premier actually intend for something to be done about his
Forestry Tasmania-inspired thought-bubble, or was it just another
feel-good throwaway line?"

"The main threat to the critically endangered Swift Parrot is habitat
loss, and the main destroyer of that habitat is the clearfelling of
mature Tasmanian forests, which the Premier has done nothing to
prevent," said Ms O'Connor.




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