Video of a huge tree on a logging truck draws attention to deforestation in Tasmania
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On August 14, 2023, activists and conservationists in Tasmania, Australia were shocked to see a video of a massive log on the back of a truck. The tree that was cut down was a eucalyptus regnans, the largest flowering plant in the world. And it came from one of the island's native forests, home to trees more than 300 years old. We spoke to a conservationist from the Bob Brown Foundation to learn more about the impact of logging on these ancient forests. And why it's still going on.
This huge log, larger than the truck it’s transported on, comes from a tree felled in the Australian state of Tasmania, 240 kilometres south of the mainland.
Shameful Tassie’s Single-Rider. "Just days ago this wonder of nature, centuries old but still unimaginable strong and youthful, was alive and a natural wonder. Today the tree’s death is a national disgrace," Bob Brown #politas #auspolhttps://t.co/mcfDMoJDBG pic.twitter.com/acDPWoO6L3
— Bob Brown Foundation (@BobBrownFndn) August 14, 2023
'Every time one of those giant trees is logged, we're losing an enormous carbon storehouse, but also an apartment block of incredible wildlife habitat'
Conservationists like Jenny Weber of the Bob Brown Foundation are trying to get logging companies, managed by the Tasmanian government, to stop destroying the forests.
Tasmania's native forests have the extraordinarily huge, tallest flowering plants in the world. They are called the eucalyptus regnans and they grow to hundreds of years old. Sadly in Tasmania there's been a loss of these sorts of ancient forests for decades. The large-scale clear felling that's going on in Tasmania is for woodchips, it's for exports out of this island to Taiwan, to China.
Every time one of those giant trees is logged, we're losing an enormous carbon storehouse, but also an apartment block of incredible wildlife habitat that is in those forests. When a tree gets to hundreds of years old like that, it's home to bats, to birds, owls. It's a very important single tree for so much wildlife. We know, for example, in Tasmania that the critically endangered swift parrot, the fastest parrot on earth, has been sent to the brink of extinction due to logging.
Although certain regions of Australia are making moves to stop logging and deforestation to protect crucial species and their habitats, Tasmania has been lagging behind these regulations. In 2022, the island lost 15,000 hectares of natural forest.
Unfortunately, the logging of Australia's forests is exempt from national environment laws that are designed to protect the conservation of species. When they're logging the habitat of the koala or the critically endangered swift parrot, it's all under the oversight of governments that allow it to happen.
So, immediately after we heard that this logging was going on and we saw that log truck which shocked the world, we took action and we went into the forest and took non-violent protest. And we've been consecutively going in there each day. Unfortunately, the government sends in the police, arrests the protesters and asks us to move on.