Environmentalist Bob Brown has been found guilty of trespassing during a protest against logging near Snow Hill.
Brown, 79, along with Karen Weldrick, 64 and Kristy Alger, 42, appeared in the Hobart Magistrates Court on Monday over the incident on November 8, 2022.
The trio were arrested while protesting against logging by Sustainable Timber Tasmania in the state’s north-east, an area they claimed was crucial habitat for the endangered swift parrot.
The group claimed the area was crucial habitat for the endangered swift parrot and that logging operations were harming the bird’s survival.
Brown, 79, said he saw a swift parrot fly overhead while he was being arrested.
Weldrick, 64 and Alger, 42, were arrested after chaining themselves to logging machinery.
The Magistrate found the evidence presented by the Bob Brown Foundation insufficient and ruled there was no evidence the logging was illegal.
She also rejected the trio’s argument that their actions constituted a ‘safe, peaceful, non-obstructive protest on an issue of public importance’, stating that it was ‘neither safe nor un-obstructive’.
“We’re back in a week or so to be sentenced for being found guilty, but I will be appealing,” Brown said outside court.
“I’m going to appeal to the Australian public to join us for more peaceful forest protests in defence of the forests, where governments under the impress of big corporations won’t make that stand.”
“Jail has no terror like the destruction of this world’s nature. And it’s up to us in our time to stop that destruction.”
