Greens founder Bob Brown has been arrested while protesting logging in Tasmania’s highlands just days after reprimanding Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek for giving him the cold shoulder.
His arrest was revealed by his foundation and came after he spent the night camping in the state’s Eastern Tiers Forest Reserve alongside defenders of a rapid parrot habitat.
“This is a national disgrace, I call on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to put a stop to this logging which is illegal under Australia’s international obligations,” Mr Brown said of the logging area.
His arrest comes just days after he called the environment minister for killing him after the two ran into each other in the same restaurant.
Labor’s Tanya Plibersek was touring Tasmania last week to ‘consider the environmental impact on this special part of Australia, understand its cultural and heritage significance and hear the views of the local community’ when she encountered Mr Brown.
On Twitter, Mr Brown posted a photo of himself in a cafe in Tullah, two hours west of Launceston, on Friday, complaining that Ms Plibersek had turned him down.
Bob Brown’s arrest was revealed by his foundation after he spent the night camping in the area next to defenders of a habitat for fast parrots
Bob Brown (center) shared this photo where Ms. Plibersek is seen dining with a group of men just over his shoulder (pictured)
“Last night Australia’s Environment Minister Plibersek dined with senior mining officials, not Bob Brown and environmentalists, two tables away,” the Bob Brown Foundation account tweeted.
“The minister declined an invitation to see rainforests with Bob today. An absolute low in Australian environmental history.’
Mr Brown has continued to fight for the environment since he stepped down as leader of the Greens in 2012.
In an earlier press release about the rapid parrot protest, Mr Brown said: ‘Camping here with speed parrots overhead and in the remnants of the forest around us is experiencing the feeling that Australia is committing a crime against nature.
“These critically endangered birds are here and nowhere else on Earth, nesting.
‘No nests, no birds. And the government authorizes the destruction of the big trees, the trees that are needed for nesting.
“The same goes for the masked owl that called out at full moon last night directly above my campsite.
“(Tasmanian) Prime Minister Jeremy Rockliff can stop this debacle immediately. In this era of mass extinction, it is unreasonable for the feeding and breeding habitat of this critically endangered bird in Tasmania to be destroyed for wood chips to China,” he added.
In a statement, Tasmania Police told the Daily Mail Australia: ‘Police visited a timber production zone near Lake Leake this morning after reports that a group of people were blocking the work of logging contractors.
“Some people in the group have moved on without incident, but a man who was not initially from the area will be subpoenaed to appear in court in a Trespass case.
“Two women who had attached themselves to logging equipment with metal lock-on devices were arrested and charged by Trespass and Obstruct Police after search and rescue officers had to intervene and free them from the equipment.
“They will appear in court later.”
Mr Brown is a long-time resident of Tasmania and his Bob Brown Foundation promotes environmental awareness – including pushing for the Tarkine region to be listed as a World Heritage Site, which would prevent mining.
Ms Plibersek (pictured) will have to vote on whether or not to support China’s MMG mine building a tailings dam in Tasmania’s pristine Tarkine region
According to Tasmania’s Department of State Growth, the pristine Takyna/Tarkine area of northwest Tasmania contains the largest area of cool temperate rainforest in Australia and a large number of Aboriginal heritage sites.
But the area is also rich in minerals and is one of Tasmania’s most ‘critical’ important sites for the mining and forestry industry, which generates billions in revenue.
Ms Plibersek said that, as part of her two-day tour of the Tarkine region, she met ‘workers from a zinc and copper mine that has been operating in the area for over 85 years’.
The mine is seeking federal government approval for a new dam. I take these decisions seriously,” she said.
China’s MMG heavy metal mine in Rosebery is seeking approval for a 285-acre tailings dam – a levee used to store mining by-products.
In July of this year, the Bob Brown Foundation argued in court that former Environment Secretary Sussan Ley’s decision to start work on the site was not authorized under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) ) Act.
The federal court ruled in its favor that Ms Ley had failed to take into account the area that is the habitat of Tasmania’s rare masked owl.
Ms Plibersek said on Friday that she is carefully considering her decision.
“I will consider carefully what I have seen and heard in making a decision, as I am required by law. For now, I have to be careful about what I say in public because any suggestion I’ve made ahead of a decision could be challenged in court,” she said.
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