Podcast: Download (Duration: 53:40 — 49.3MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS | More
The Sustainable Hour no. 581 | Transcript | Podcast notes
Our guest in The Sustainable Hour no. 581 is Jenny Weber, campaigns director at the Bob Brown Foundation.
. . .
In The Sustainable Hour on 11 March 2026, the conversation stretches across three countries – with Mik in Denmark, Tony in Tasmania and Colin on Wadawurrung Country – yet the focus lands firmly on one small bird and one very big question: what kind of future are we choosing?
At the centre of the episode is the critically endangered swift parrot, a species that breeds only in Tasmania. Fewer than a thousand birds remain. Each year they cross Bass Strait to feed on mainland Australia – but when they return to Tasmania to breed, their forest habitat is being logged.
. . .
Disconnect raising uncomfortable questions
The episode begins with a reflection on energy and political priorities. Denmark, where Mik Aidt is currently visiting, taxes fossil fuel industries heavily while supporting young people through free education and monthly study grants. Australia, by contrast, continues to subsidise fossil fuel industries while students accumulate debt. It raises a simple but confronting question: why do we subsidise pollution instead of investing in knowledge, innovation and a safer future?
Mik then turns to energy security. Fossil fuels create vulnerability – to geopolitical conflicts, supply disruptions and price shocks. Renewable energy offers the opposite: independence and stability.
Solar power is now dramatically cheaper than gas and coal. The global growth of solar has been astonishing – the second terawatt of installed capacity arrived just two years after the first. Around the world, hundreds of millions of households are switching to solar electricity. And yet, despite strong public support for climate action, new fossil fuel projects continue to be approved.
• Solar is now eight times cheaper than coal and gas
• A large majority of Australians support the renewable transition
• Yet more than 30 coal and gas developments have been approved in recent years by the Labor government
This disconnect raises uncomfortable questions about democratic representation and political influence. Is Parliament listening to the public – or to powerful industries? Enter The Democracy Project.
. . .
Climate signals from around the world
In his weekly global outlook, Colin Mockett OAM reports on the growing intensity of climate-driven disasters.
Severe flooding across southern Africa has displaced more than 150,000 people and destroyed huge areas of farmland. In parts of the region, ten days of rainfall exceeded the typical annual total.
Australia has seen its own extremes – torrential rains breaking drought in some regions while floods isolate communities across others.
Meanwhile, research examining almost four decades of climate disasters has found an unexpected trend: Asia has dramatically reduced deaths from floods and storms thanks to improved forecasting, infrastructure and emergency response systems.
Better preparation is saving lives. But the warning remains clear: the planet continues to heat, and extreme events are intensifying across continents.
. . .
The fight to save the swift parrot
The main interview of the episode features Jenny Weber, campaigns lead at the Bob Brown Foundation.
She joins the program from Tasmania after spending the day in the Supreme Court alongside Bob Brown himself.
The case concerns Brown’s arrest while attempting to halt logging in forests that provide breeding habitat for the swift parrot. Brown argued he was acting to defend a species on the brink of extinction. The court will take several months to deliver its decision.
For Weber, the case symbolises a broader conflict between environmental protection and political systems that continue to support destructive industries.
The swift parrot is listed as critically endangered. Scientists have warned for more than a decade that its remaining habitat should be fully protected. Yet logging continues in key breeding areas.
• Fewer than 1,000 swift parrots remain
• Tasmania is the only place on Earth where they breed
• Their habitat is still being logged despite scientific warnings
The situation illustrates a wider biodiversity crisis: species disappearing even while governments acknowledge the danger.
. . .
The forests of Takayna
The Bob Brown Foundation focuses much of its work on protecting Tasmania’s remaining ancient forests, including the vast wilderness of Takayna in the state’s northwest.
Campaigns combine legal action, public mobilisation and frontline protest.
In recent years the movement has organised nationwide Marches for Forests, bringing tens of thousands of people into the streets across Australia. The next major march to protect forests nationwide will be held on 22 March 2026.
→ More details on this can be found here: www.marchforforests.org
Tens of thousands are expected to march showing their support for forests on 22 March 2026. Marches will occur in 12 different towns and cities, for example: Hobart, Ulladulla, Bellingen, Melbourne, Canberra, Lismore, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane, Bega, Newcastle and Perth.
The Bob Brown Foundation also runs immersive campaigns that invite people to witness the forests firsthand – taking volunteers to logging sites, mills and export points to understand how ancient ecosystems are converted into woodchips and exported overseas. Many participants return home transformed, turning despair into determination.
. . .
Jobs, forests and the future
A familiar argument raised against forest protection is that logging provides jobs.
Jenny Weber challenges that narrative. The native forest logging industry in Tasmania employs only a few hundred workers. At the same time, plantation forestry already supplies the vast majority of Australia’s timber needs.
Protecting native forests, she argues, does not mean abandoning employment. Restoration work, national park management, eco-tourism and sustainable forestry all provide alternative livelihoods.
The deeper issue is whether society is willing to stop destroying ecosystems that contain endangered species. Some industries, she suggests, simply belong in the past.
. . .
From despair to action
Despite witnessing enormous environmental loss, Weber emphasises that activism offers a path through despair. Her philosophy draws on deep ecology: confronting ecological reality while transforming grief into action.
Thousands of volunteers now participate in the Bob Brown Foundation’s campaigns each year. Many are trained in non-violent protest and civil resistance.
For Weber, engagement – rather than resignation – is the only meaningful response to planetary crisis. Don’t get depressed. As Bob Brown often says: “Get active!”
. . .
The longer view
The episode closes with reflections from conservation leaders including Senator David Pocock and environmentalist Bob Brown.
The message is simple yet profound: The land does not belong to us. We belong to it. And the choices we make today will determine what remains for the generations that follow.
→ Read more: www.bobbrown.org.au
. . .
Music and message
The episode features two original songs:
“Becoming Earth” explores humanity’s intimate connection with the living world – dissolving the imagined boundary between people and nature. The song premiered in The Sustainable Hour no. 544.
The closing song, “Take Action for Earth”, is inspired by the critically endangered swift parrot and the ongoing logging of its breeding habitat in Tasmania. The song tells the story of a bird that travels vast distances each year, returning faithfully to the same forests – only to find those forests disappearing. Through simple imagery, the lyrics contrast two forces: the quiet persistence of nature and the relentless pressure of profit-driven destruction. Ancient trees that took centuries to grow can fall in seconds, while fewer than a thousand swift parrots remain in the wild.
The song is both a lament and a call to courage. It honours the work of environmental defenders such as Bob Brown and the Bob Brown Foundation, while inviting listeners to reflect on their own role in protecting the living world. The chorus – “Stand for the forests, stand for the truth, stand for the future we owe to our youth” – turns the story of a single endangered bird into a broader message about responsibility, democracy and the choices societies must make.
This song carries a simple message: when the fate of the Earth is at stake, the only meaningful response is action.
Take Action for Earth | Lyrics
– Dedicated to the swift parrot and to those defending its forests, this song echoes the messages of Jenny Weber from Bob Brown Foundation. Premiered in The Sustainable Hour no. 581
→ More songs from The Sustainable Hour
“Get active with us because, like Bob Brown says: Don’t get depressed, get active! And we find that we have a lot of joy in this organisation, even though we’re facing off a multi-layered crisis for this wonderful planet that we live in.”
~ Jenny Weber, campaign director, Bob Brown Foundation
→ Subscribe to The Sustainable Hour podcast via Apple Podcasts or Spotify
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
We at The Sustainable Hour would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we are broadcasting, the Wadawurrung People. We pay our respects to their elders – past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all First Nations people.
The traditional custodians lived in harmony with the land for millennia, nurturing it and thriving in often harsh conditions. Their connection to the land was deeply spiritual and sustainable. This land was invaded and stolen from them. It was never ceded. Today, it is increasingly clear that if we are to survive the climate emergency we face, we must learn from their land management practices and cultural wisdom.
True climate justice cannot be achieved until Australia’s First Nations people receive the justice they deserve. When we speak about the future, we must include respect for those yet to be born, the generations to come. As the old saying reminds us: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” It is deeply unfair that decisions to ignore the climate emergency are being made by those who won’t live to face the worst impacts, leaving future generations to bear the burden of their inaction.
“The Indigenous worldview has been marginalised for generations because it was seen as antiquated and unscientific and its ethics of respect for Mother Earth were in conflict with the industrial worldview. But now, in this time of climate change and massive loss of biodiversity, we understand that the Indigenous worldview is neither unscientific nor antiquated, but is, in fact, a source of wisdom that we urgently need.”
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, weallcanada.org
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
UPDATE
22/03/2026
March for Forests draws 15,000 across 14 locations nationally calling to end native forest logging and mining
Across 14 locations nationwide, over 15,000 people marched in the streets for the protection of native forests today, as the Bob Brown Foundation mobilises its largest-ever annual call for an end to native forest logging and mining.
“Thousands of good-hearted people voted with their feet today to end native forest logging. C’mon Albo, listen to Australians and act to save the forests. End putting taxpayers’ money into this evil and unnecessary industry. Polls show that voters of every political persuasion want to save what is left of Australia’s native forests. The voice for forests is getting louder every day, every month, every year,” said Bob Brown.
“Today, we mobilised 15,000 people across this nation in solidarity for forest protection. We marched in Hobart, the capital city of a state that logs critically endangered Swift Parrot breeding habitat. We marched in Western Australia, in Perth and Margaret River, where the mining companies Alcoa and South32 want to continue clearing forests even though Bauxite mining is now the leading cause of deforestation in the state’s southwest. In Queensland, we marched to federal Environment Minister Murray Watt’s office, as he stands with the logging and mining industries to keep clearing forests. In six locations across NSW, we marched, including in regional towns on the frontline of logging destruction and in the capital city of Sydney. We marched across Australia – from the nation’s capital of Canberra to the Melbourne CBD, Adelaide and Mackay,” said Jenny Weber, Bob Brown Foundation’s Campaigns Director.
“Forests are one of the planet’s most powerful tools against the climate and biodiversity crises. We are living in a time where logging and mining native forests endangers people’s lives by making bushfires more severe, exacerbating the heating of the planet and removing habitat for endangered species. It’s well past time for native forest destruction to end. Native forests produce oxygen, store carbon, produce water and bring rain, and they are critical habitat for countless rare and threatened species, our national forest estate must be securely protected,” said Jenny Weber.
In NSW, where the Forestry Corporation is illegally logging native forests right across the state, former Magistrate David Heilpburn spoke at the Bellingen March: “Apart from a March for our forests, this is also a gathering for victims of crime. We know who the criminals are: Forestry Corporation, and we know who the victims are: ancient trees, animals, riparian zones. But also us: the residents of NSW who waste our resources on these criminals and these crimes.”
In Adelaide, the prominent Australian band Ocean Alley was represented by band member Mitch Galbraith: “Together, we stand up for those that can’t, our unique and valuable flora and fauna, and together, our voice is loud and will be heard. Forests have been here long before my ancestors arrived here, and they belong to the people and culture that were here long before them. Native forests are rare, special, and deserve our respect. How dare we denigrate this great land and the culture and people that it has nurtured for tens of thousands of years? Irresponsible and ignorant governments keep failing us.”
“Dear politicians everywhere: if your energy depends on fossil fuels, you aren’t a sovereign nation; you’re a hostage. The sun doesn’t send a bill and the wind doesn’t charge for delivery. Forever.”
~ Assaad Razzouk
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
TRANSCRIPT
of The Sustainable Hour no. 581
Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General: (00:00)
Cooperation over chaos. We are all in this together.
Jingle: (00:15)
The Sustainable Hour. For a green, clean, sustainable Geelong: The Sustainable Hour.
Tony Gleeson: (00:24)
Welcome to The Sustainable Hour podcast. We’d like to acknowledge that we’re broadcasting from a couple of different countries at the moment, or actually: three different countries at the moment. Colin is on Wadawurrung Country as usual, Mik’s in Denmark, and I’m on Lutruwita, or Tasmania, and about to leave – I’ll come back tonight on the ferry.
We acknowledge that we owe a great depth of gratitude to our First Nations people for their accumulation of ancient wisdom, something that’s happened over many, many, many millennia. It’s based on observation, observing our honour to their mother Earth and doing no harm to it, to her. Always was and always will be First Nations land.
Mik Aidt: (01:32)
In Denmark, the government tax on fossil fuel industries is around 60 per cent. And they don’t subsidise them. Actually, instead, the Danish government has chosen to subsidise their young people’s education, universities are free, and young people receive a grant to study around $1,600 every month in support from the government for their studies.
The Australian government has chosen to do, you could almost say, quite the opposite. It subsidises the fossil fuel industry with $15 billion a year. And then students, they have to pay tax for getting an education.
I would ask: why do we subsidise pollution and climate breakdown, and why do we not subsidise education, innovation and life?
Rewiring Australia video clip on linkedin.com:
Anger and bewilderment are growing as more and more Americans cope with gasoline lines and empty pumps.
Two hours and I can’t get gassed? This is baloney!
Why doesn’t anybody contact the president? Why is he letting this happen to us?
Some of the people online here still don’t have a tank of gas. Except for this gentleman who’s driving an electric vehicle.
Nah, I’m fine. I charged it home last night. Good luck, though.
Mik: (02:59)
In October 1973, a war in the Middle East created a fuel crisis. And in Denmark, this was when we started, for instance, having car-free Sundays. The roads were completely empty on Sundays, and I was a 10-year-old kid at the time, loving it. And also, the government in those days made new laws about insulating houses better.
In many ways you could say the oil crisis in 1973 was the Danish ‘wake-up moment’ as far as energy security was concerned. 25 years ago, renewables generated just 15 per cent of Denmark’s electricity. Today, renewables provide more than 90 per cent.
In Australia? Well, as it is, Australians are spending $160 million on fuel imports every day. But we only have enough imported fuel to last us a bit over a month if the supply chain in the Middle East suddenly becomes completely cut.
But you know, in Denmark we have a saying that goes, “Der er ikke noget der er så skidt, at det ikke er godt for noget.” …which means: ‘Nothing is so bad that it isn’t good for something.’ Or, “Every cloud has a silver lining.” And the silver lining of a fuel crisis, I would say, is that we begin collectively to wake up to the importance of energy independence, energy security, the fact that renewables actually strengthen our energy security.
That’s what the events in the Middle East have brought into focus now. And here’s a little calculation that really highlights it:
Let’s say, for instance, you spent $100 million on importing gas. And well, then you burn it. So once you’ve burned the gas, it’s gone. Instead, if you had spent those $100 million on solar panels, you’d be able to generate the same amount of electricity as the gas was able to provide for the first year. But with solar, you keep getting that same energy year after year after year. So the solar panels, let’s say they last for three decades, that means that you have avoided spending $3 billion on gas imports.
And the numbers keep changing.
Solar power is now eight times cheaper than polluting gas. And solar is three times cheaper than coal now. So isn’t it kind of obvious now that it’s time to go electric? That gas is a ransom. That fossil fuels are nothing but a recipe for war, rising prices, risk of collapse in our society.
If the supply chain suddenly gets cut off, renewables are the only real declaration of independence.
And the good news is how fast that independence is spreading. It took us – it took humanity – 68 years to reach the first terawatt of solar power on this planet. But it only took us two years to hit the second terawatt. And two terawatts, that’s enough to power one billion households worldwide.
Eight out of ten of us – 8 out of 10 Australians support this, support the renewable energy transition.
While half a billion households switched over to solar around the planet, Australia’s Labour government has approved more than 30 coal and gas developments and extensions in this country since it was elected in 2022.
Poll after poll is showing that 7 out of 10 Australians, sometimes more, sometimes 8 out of 10 Australians, see climate change as a serious threat and a very, very clear majority wants Australia now to reduce its emissions.
So what is wrong in parliament? Something is obviously not working in our democracy when politicians keep exposing themselves as mouthpieces for the gas lobby groups that pay them, either officially declaring it or maybe, we don’t know, under the table.
It would seem to me that to electrify this country we will not only have to face out our purchases of petrol cars, we will also have to face out this current lot of politicians. Elect a new breed of honest politicians who think further ahead than just the next election and who have the guts to stop this dependence on fossil fuels and on unsafe dictatorships around the world.
Quote: “Trust is falling, inequality is rising, and too many major decisions are made without meaningful public involvement.”
That’s a quote from an exciting new Democracy Project, which is being launched at the Melbourne Town Hall on the 9th of May. You can find it if you just google ‘Democracy Project’ Melbourne. And we’ll be talking a lot more about this as we get closer to the date.
But today we’ve dedicated The Sustainable Hour to, you could say, ‘Tony’s project’, he’s been in Tasmania the last weeks and we’ll hear about what he and a group of people have been up to in the Tasmanian wilderness.
But first of all, enough here from your Danish sustainability reporter and over to Colin Mockett OAM, our global reporter, our man with the global overview, who keeps an eye on all the new scientific reports, among other things, that come out every week. So, Colin, let’s hear what you’ve got for us today!
COLIN MOCKETT’S GLOBAL OUTLOOK: (08:51)
Yes, I think we can condense down your effort this week, into one simple sentence saying that Denmark has got it right and Australia has got it very, very wrong. But my roundup this week begins in Africa, where the region’s rainy season has hit hard from Mozambique through to South Africa, causing widespread flooding, displacing an estimated 150,000 people and destroying 105,000 hectares of farmland.
A new study by scientists at World Weather Attribution that investigates the role of human-caused climate change in extreme weather events found that a warming climate combined with La Niña weather pattern has aggravated the continent’s extreme rains.
The most striking finding was that the rainfall over just 10 days exceeded the African region’s average annual rainfall. 10 days to beat your average annual amount. “Now this was unprecedented,” lead author Izidine Pinto said. He’s a climatologist and researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.
He added that some weather stations recorded more than 200 millimetres of rain in just 24 hours. But we in Australia can actually beat that. We beat it during February, with some parts of northern South Australia receiving more than four years of average annual rainfall in a week, with 215 millimetre falling in one night and 100mm daily for the following four days. The ensuing floods isolated communities, but they were welcomed. People were dancing because it broke a three-year drought.
Elsewhere in Australia, almost half of the nation was placed on flood watch as a slow-moving tropical low drenched vast areas, triggering severe weather warnings across multiple states and territories. Bureau of Meteorology Senior Meteorologist Jonathan Howe warned residents of four states, including Victoria, to prepare for extended wet conditions.
For South Australia and New South Wales, heavy rain is forecast to continue well into the second week of March, he said. Elsewhere in the world, last month showed other extremes. There was traffic stopping 60 centimetres of snow that fell overnight in New York. It stopped the traffic, literally that. There was more than that, deeper snow in Minnesota, and widespread flooding in Brazil that claimed 70 lives.
In contrast, a new study that was published by the researchers at the University of Chicago, analysed nearly 2000 of the deadliest climate events worldwide since 1988. Now this included floods, storms and heat waves.
The study drew from the world’s largest public database of disaster-related deaths, and it found that of all areas, Asia has learned the most from science and is now benefiting from its knowledge of climate change. Every year, floods and cyclones batter vast stretches of Asia, from India’s coastline through to Bangladesh’s river deltas, to the Philippines storm corridors. And yet the new study shows that Asia has now got better at surviving its climate disasters, far better in fact than any other region in the world.
The major finding is that improved infrastructure and early warning systems across Asia have conservatively saved between 300,000 and 500,000 lives. That’s in total, that’s not a year. What makes this really impressive is the context. Asia’s population has grown substantially since 1988, meaning there are more people exposed to floods and storms than ever before. Rainfall extremes have also intensified as climate change is making Asia’s monsoons and cyclones more powerful, not less.
Despite both of these factors working against it, the continent is recording fewer deaths from disasters and not more. Researchers attribute this to better weather forecasting, stronger flood control infrastructure, and faster emergency responses. “The deadliness of climate hazards reflects more than just the weather{“, the report says.
By looking across decades of data, we can see how improvements in development, early warning systems, and effective emergency responses are measurably shaping the risks. The study estimates this amounts to roughly a 40 per cent reduction in flood and storm deaths compared to Asia’s previous disaster preparedness. But it added that the picture elsewhere was more troubling.
In Europe, deaths from extreme temperature events like heat waves are rising sharply as climate change makes blistering summers more frequent and deadly cold slaps increasingly rare. It found that in Africa, deadly floods are becoming more common, though the study found that much of this was primarily driven by population growth, pushing more people into flood prone areas rather than worsening storms.
So where does that leave Australia? Well, scientists are predicting that more extreme temperatures could lay ahead for us and possibly another global annual high after three of the hottest years on record. In January this year, record-setting heat enveloped the southern hemisphere, not just Australia, sending temperatures near 50 degrees in Australia, while heat and catastrophic wildfires gripped parts of South America, setting remote parts of Argentina’s Patagonia ablaze, killing 21 people in Chile, while in Africa, Kenya and Somalia, they’re all experiencing severe drought.
In addition, South Africa has been experiencing its worst wildfires in years. So the question is: Are we as prepared for climate related disasters as Asia is now? And is our government pulling its weight in the global effort to reduce carbon emissions, which the whole world knows is causing the climate to change? The answer to both, I’m afraid, is “NO”.
And that depressing note finishes my roundup for the week because although Forest Green Rovers won their game against Gateshead. There’s still six points behind the team’s chasing promotion and the Rovers women’s match was postponed because of a waterlogged pitch again. So that really does end our round up. I haven’t got any good news at all.
. . .
Jingle: (17:02)
Listen to our Sustainable Hour – for the future.
. . .
Tony: (17:10)
Our guest today is Jenny Weber. Jenny is the Campaigns Lead at the Bob Brown Foundation. So, welcome, Jenny, thanks for coming on.
Jenny Weber: (17:24)
My absolute pleasure, lovely to be with you.
Tony: (17:27)
Okay, now what’s up front for BBF at the moment?
Jenny: (17:32)
So, today I’ve spent the day with Bob Brown in Tasmania Supreme Court. Bob Brown is appealing the decision to make him guilty for standing up for the swift parrots. So swift parrots are a critically endangered species in Tasmania, but they breed only in Tasmania, and they’re currently heading off to the mainland of Australia to have their winter feeding time, but the only place on Earth that they breed is in Tasmania.
The thing about the swift parrot is that when they come here to breed every year there is less of its forest because logging of swift parrot habitat is still allowed. Forestry Tasmania is the Tasmanian logging agency and whilst the do have prescriptions to stop logging if one of our scientists or one of our activists finds swift parrots. They then do an assessment and once they’ve done the assessment and if they think it’s okay to keep logging, they keep logging. So Bob Brown in late 2022 went into a forest full of swift parrots and stopped the logging because he was there to defend that critically endangered species.
He was found guilty of trespass. And he challenged that guilt because he said he believed that he was there to defend the swift parrots and he had every right to be there. He then went to the Supreme Court and now he is appealing again that primary judgement with the full bench of the Supreme Court.
So that is another day in the Bob Brown Foundation’s life, where Bob Brown, our true leader, as an environmentalist, but also as someone who will get on the front line and take action – is taking to task the fact that we are criminalising people for standing up to save swift parrots – critically endangered species.
Our recent campaign activity for the last month has included ongoing forest resistance. We had an extraordinary 120 people who travelled to Tasmania from all across Australia and around the world to join a week-long campaign of direct action. Our direct nonviolent action was targeting ancient, ancient forests – beautiful old, old forests in the central highlands.
If anyone who has traveled to Tasmania knows Lake St Clair – a beautiful world heritage area, part of the Cradle Mountain world heritage area. Just nearby Lake St Clair is a logging of very, very old forest with rainforests understory. So our campaign at the Bob Brown Foundation is to take action.
Now what we have done throughout the last decade is write to all the politicians. We have asked the companies who are buying the timber not to buy it. We’ve done all manner of lobbying to ask for the protection of native forest. And when everyone fails in the legislating area, everyone fails in their powerful positions, Powerful turns to people power. Power was that we all turned up took to all politicians, companies who were to buy, not to buy it, and all matters relating to the protection of native lands.
When everyone fails in the legislating areas, or everyone fails in the people positions, it turns to people power. So people power was that we all turned up and we all took action, and it was a really great show of defiance. Here at the Bob Brown Foundation we have the wonderful collaborative effort to take defiant action for Planet Earth.
We are in a lot of trouble with the climate and biodiversity crisis, and so here at our foundation we try to focus on forests. We focus on the beautiful, ancient, wild places called Takayna / Tarkine in North West Tasmania, and we also campaign for the marine environment.
So our marine campaign team work for Antarctica, and they spend their time dedicated to calling for an end to krill fishing. And they also spend a lot of time fighting the salmon industry in Tasmania. So, enormous corporations that are responsible for large-scale destruction across the planet. The JBS out of Brazil, one of the world’s largest animal agriculture companies, is one of the owners of the salmons farms here in Tasmania.
And another controversional company called Cook Aquaculture, also an international corporation from Canada, also is one of the owners.
You’ve got the enormous pens… they are like animal factories, if you can think of abattoirs, huge chicken factories it’s the equivalent of that. People who are neighbours to fish farms are finding pollution on their beaches. They’re finding whole dead zones underneath the pens, finding that fish are not in these waters. People are seeing a decline in the ecosystem of farms.
Fish are no longer able to be caught because of the fish farm.
So, yeah, we have a marine team, we have a team focused on the protection of Tarkine, and we have a native forest team.
So we have been able to grow out of a very small number of people who joined with Bob Brown when he left the Senate. He left the Senate and said he was retiring to do more dishes with his partner Paul Thomas. He definitely is doing more dishes, I think, at home. But he also set up this organisation which is called the Bob Brown Foundation and this organisation has grown significantly in those 12 years into a much more powerful and influential team.
But it’s not just about getting it all out into paid jobs to take action for the environment. It’s about harnessing a huge number of people who want to take action. so we have hundreds of thousands of volunteers every single year. Hundreds, thousands of people who are involved in our blockades, our protests, our marches. any number of different events across the country and even internationally.
Colin: (23:33)
Can I take you back to the very beginning where you said you spent most of the day today in court with Bob Brown. My first question is, how did it go today? You were there. Do you think that there is a chance that Bob might win, or that the Foundation might win?
Jenny: (23:54)
We did spend a day today with our legal team presenting all their arguments which were really compelling arguments. Three people there today are standing up for the swift parrots and defending Bob Brown. He was compelled to protest for these swift parrots. It went well. We have another half day tomorrow in court and then we have to wait three to four months for the judgment.
Let’s say that the three judges were asking questions. They showed interest in the arguments that our barristers were putting forward. But we always find that it’s unknown with the legal system and whether or not we win or not is yet to be seen. But we’re thankful that Bob Brown is the sort of person that just keeps taking to task the fact that there is logging of swift parrot, critically endangered swift parrot habitat still here in Tasmania.
Colin:
I’m assuming that your costs are being met by donations. Do you know who is paying the lawyers that are working for the other side?
Jenny:
So the lawyer who is on the other side is the government. So the Tasmanian government is who we are up against. It is due to incredible donations that the Bob Brown Foundation is able to do everything that we do. We don’t receive any money from the government. We don’t receive grants from the government. We’re a not-for-profit charity. And a lot of people actually like to think that we’re living off Bob’s Superannuation Fund. It’s absolutely not what’s going on.
It’s purely donations from so many people and you know, from small donations too you know this is the thing is that we love being able to engage people from all walks of life. So the government in Tasmania basically supports the logging of Tasmania’s forests. Not only does it support it financially, it supports it with weak threatened species laws. We don’t have any threatened species laws. It supports it with funding the building of the roads for the logging companies and the fact is: it is $1.3 billion of taxpayers funds that have funded Tasmania’s logging industry for the past decade.
Tony: (26:11)
That figure is much the same… or they get much the same support in other states too. Jenny, before you mentioned the tour, the Saving the Forest tour. Can you give us a bit of a sense of what the work that went into the start of that, like from when you decided to do it and then what played out from there?
Jenny: (26:40)
So the Forest Resistance Tour was designed to have a pathway for people to come and take action for Tasmania’s forests, because we know that lots of people want to take action, and we’ve had so many people sign up to Frontline Action with the Bob Brown Foundation. We wanted to make it an easy pathway for people to get engaged and stand up for forests.
Our forest team organised, over many months, to set up for different targets. We identified that we wanted to tour people around Tasmania, so that people can understand that it’s not just the forests that are being logged, but when a forest is logged, a log truck will pick up the timber and travel three hours or four hours in different directions.
They’ll head to the northwest of Tasmania where there’s a Borneo logging company, a highly controversial company out of Sarawak Borneo – that’s a palm oil company called Ta-An, and they receive timber in the northwest and then they ship it over to Sarawak where they glue it together with their tropical hardwood and they sell it into Japan.
So that company’s been a target of ours for 20 years here in Tasmania. We’ve been focused on bringing attention to the fact that we don’t believe that such a company should be supported here in Tasmania with our taxpayers’ funds. We definitely stand in solidarity with the people of Sarawak to make sure that they know that we are protesting against that company because they’re suffering under that company as well. And they’re a key driver of the logging of Tasmania’s forests.
We also went to other mills around Tasmania to make sure that people understood that those timber mills are selling to companies like Bunnings, they’re selling to companies like Harvey Norman. And so you’ve got these big old ancient forests, really, really old. They’re home to masked owls, swift parrot, Tasmanian devils, spotted tail quolls. They’re being completely flattened. And then the products from those logging operations, majority of them sadly are going to woodchips and exported to places like China and Taiwan. And then we have products that are going to Japan through Ta-an and Sarawak. And then we have products that are going through local mills to the Australian sellers. So we made sure we got all these people together and we took action.
Colin:
Now look, I might appear to be bit dumb in this regard, but the swift parrots are endangered. Do we know how many there are? Assuming that they live in the endangered forests, which is being logged, what’s the news that they’re pulling out from there? What sort of trees?
Jenny:
So the swift parrot is critically endangered. The next step for the swift parrot is extinction. The IUCN United Nations Red List. So in 2015, the United Nations said that the swift parrot needs all its land, all of its forests on public land protected in secure conservation reserves. So the United Nations said directly to the Tasmanian government and the Australian governments, now,
That’s 10 years ago, they said, you have to put all of their forest remaining into secure conservation reserves. Now there’s less than a thousand of these swift parrots left. We have some incredible scientists here in Tasmania that are swift parrot experts and they have been doggedly monitoring the swift parrot for a long time. And the sad thing is, is while they’re monitoring their swift parrots, they’re seeing that its habitat is being destroyed.
So the swift parrot relies on the hollow bearing trees in the east of Tasmania, the south of Tasmania, Bruny Island, Mariah Island, Wielangta, all these beautiful places to come and breed. The only place on earth that it breeds. And then it travels back through the central highlands where there’s logging as well and it feeds on the blue gum. So it feeds on the eucalyptus trees.
And then it goes back to Victoria and New South Wales and its winter feeding grounds in New South Wales are also being logged. So the swift parrot is the fastest parrot on earth. It travels across the Bass Strait and it’s suffering at both its breeding corner and its winter feeding corner. you know, it’s time for governments to realise that just to native forest logging. It’s absolutely acceptable to end native forest logging. Only 12 per cent of Tasmanians support the ongoing logging of native forests.
And not only is it important to end native forest logging for the survival of endangered species, but it’s also important to end native forest logging for the climate mitigating benefits that we get from beautiful intact forests giving us clean air and absorbing carbon. It’s a simple, straightforward solution to the problems that we’re all facing.
. . .
SONG:
‘Becoming Earth’
[Verse 1]
Tall grass between my fingers
Dirt beneath my skin
Something pulling me down
Into where you begin
Can you feel me here?
Just letting go
[Pre-chorus]
The weight of me
Sinking slow
Your soil and my bones
Starting to flow
[Chorus]
Am I becoming earth
Or is earth becoming me?
When I lay here so still
Where do I end, where do you be?
(Where do I end, where do you be?)
[Verse 2]
Root tips touch my shoulders
Time moves like rain
Your breath in the breeze now
Teaching me your name
Every blade of grass
A finger reaching up
[Bridge]
(La-di-da-da, mm-ba-da)
(Earth-a-mama-soul-a)
Roots and leaves and soil speak
(Di-da-la, so-ma-be)
[Chorus]
Am I becoming earth
Or is earth becoming me?
When I rest in your arms
Where do I end, where do you be?
(Where do I end, where do you be?)
[Outro]
[Nature sounds growing stronger]
Let me sink deeper
Let me flow free
Ahhh-ooo-ahhhh
(Earth-a-mama-soul-a)
[Fading wind sounds]
Audio clip at the end:
Charles Eisenstein in a podcast interview with Russell Brand
. . .
Tony:
Jenny, how do you manage the conflict between jobs and growth and protecting the habitat? That’s a comment that’s often thrown out by right-wing commentators. Often that’s not an easy point to debate. How do you manage that? How does Bob Brown Foundation manage that?
Jenny:
Some really key positives about future employment. The restoration of degraded forests will provide employment. Restoration of degraded forests is necessary in this great disruption that we’re all experiencing due to climate crisis. The protected landscape, protected places do provide employment.
Do you think about all the national parks across Australia and the people who are employed to look after the national parks, the people who are employed to service the toilets, the electricians, plumbers, all these different people who are employed to look after protected landscapes? So for too long there’s been an attack on environmentalists that there are no jobs in protected places and it’s just not true. The other important point to make is that in Tasmania’s logging industry, they employ 300 people. So 300 people who cut the giant trees down, people who cart the timber around in the log trucks or work in the mills.
Now plantations are where we need to be moving those people. Plantations is a growing industry. Plantations already supply 90 per cent of Australia’s wood needs. 90 per cent!
So the plantation industry is growing and there’s definitely ways to employ people in the plantation industry. The restoration of forests, degraded forests, has not yet been taken hold of by our governments because they’re just lacking the will to take climate action, but there are definitely ways that we can employ people. And I think that at the end of the day, it’s not good enough to say, well, it’s someone’s job to keep destroying an ecosystem that has critically endangered species, so we just need to keep doing it. It’s a similar argument to, you know, need to keep whaling for whatever reason we’re whaling for.
I mean, it’s just not okay to be doing it anymore, despite the fact that people all over the world are losing their jobs for other reasons and they’re not being treated the same way as the logging industry. So the native forest logging industry in Australia has been routinely compensated every single time. They’ve been paid exit packages if there’s an end to native forest logging anywhere. Did that happen to the people who lost their jobs when the car industry shut down in South Australia? It’s a big problem that we keep compensating people because they have to stop logging native forests.
Colin:
Yeah, and of course the ecological tourism industry is one that we don’t ever try and support. Hey look, can I ask, first of all, how old is Bob Brown now and how is his health?
Jenny:
Bob Brown is 81 and he’s doing fabulously. He is absolutely wonderful. He spent the day today in the Supreme Court. We have an annual fundraising event called Takayna Trail where trail runners run 62 kilometres, 37 kilometres and 22 kilometres in the mighty ancient Takayna in northwest Tasmania. And as they come over the finish line, Bob hugs every single one of them. So 200 runners who raised us half a million dollars and just a week ago ran all the way through to Kina and Bob stood at the finish line and hugged every single one of them. He is just a man of huge, amazing, powerful energy and we treasure every single day we get to spend with him.
Colin:
Excellent!
Mik:
What does the calendar for the Bob Brown Foundation look like? Let’s say the next half year, the next year, even the next years?
Jenny:
So really close in just three weeks, have marches for forests. So the marches for forests, we’ve already had 30,000 people march for native forests across Australia in the last two years. And on Sunday, the 22nd of March is another one of those. It’s the first time that any organisation has rallied people onto the streets for forests in 12 different locations.
So across New South Wales, Brisbane in Queensland, our Western Australian friends who are facing that terrible clearing of forests by the US company called Alcoa, our friends in South Australia and Victoria and here in Tasmania will be marching. It’s a really great way to get involved in our campaign.
In the next six months we are going to be taking consistent frontline action in Tasmania’s forests and there’s logging happening every single day. We just can’t get out and take action as much as we’d like to. So that’s a real focus for us. Our big turning point in the Takayna campaign now is it’s a great opportunity for the governments to wake up and protect it as World Heritage. It’s not a World Heritage listed national park. There’s half a million hectares there crying out for protection and return to Aboriginal ownership.
And what we do in Takayna is we have an artist trip, which we do in April, where we have a hundred artists head out and they immerse themselves in the beautiful Tukayna. And then they bring their works back into the city and have exhibitions.
And at the end of the year, we have a bio blitz where we count all the species we can in 72 hours in Takayna, in different sections of Takayna. So we have some great events that we offer where people can come to Tasmania and be involved in our campaigns. And then we also have national days of actions where people can be involved right there where they live. And so it’s a really great organisation to be involved in. If you want to reach out, www.bobbrown.org.au has a newsletter sign up that you can get onto.
And yeah, get active with us because Bob says, don’t get depressed, get active. And we find that we have a lot of joy in this organisation, even though we’re facing off, you know, multi-layered crisis for this wonderful planet that we live in.
Mik:
And speaking of that, how has it impacted yourself – you know, your own mood, your own life – that you’re now working with this organisation?
Jenny:
So I adhere to a deep ecology approach to life where you know get through your despair through empowerment and action and you know, I face a lot of despair I’ve seen a lot of flattened forests I’ve seen a lot of you know just really really bad impacts on wildlife, knowing that you know wildlife are dying every single day, knowing the swift parrot… after working for the swift parrot for 12 years and I still haven’t got its forest protected.
I just keep going through empowerment with my colleagues, with my fellow defenders, people who are willing to take a stand with me. And I can’t but do what I do, and that is continue to dedicate myself to the planet.
Tony:
Any show of a return of the Forest Protection Tour next year?
Jenny:
Ah! I actually believe I could do it twice. I think I could do two a year. I’m pretty… That was my first one it was experimental and it was a great success and I was really thankful for the people coming along and doing it, and I do think that we could do two a year, so watch this space. I still haven’t met with my team to let them know I’d love to do it again, but definitely, next year. I just think that yeah we should we should actually try for twice a year.
Tony:
Yeah, the atmosphere this year was amazing, just the connections that were made. And yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Jenny:
Yeah, think what we would do is we’d have to keep it to a boutique 100 people, mean, unless we can get more team members to pull it off with more people. But yeah, it’s just great to be able to get together with like-minded people and have a go at smashing the system in a non-violent way. I think it’s really important to disrupt and to resist the destruction of the planet.
. . .
Jingle
. . .
Colin:
We tend to try and finish our program each week, Jenny, with a doing word, a being word, I think it’s the way. So it went from, well, beyond ‘Be prepared’ or ‘be involved’ – or… Would you have one on behalf of the Bob Brown that you could come up with as a slogan to finish off your interview today?
Jenny:
Okay, well, we live by: ‘Take action for Earth’.
Colin:
I’ll go along with that. Yeah. Take action for Earth.
Jenny:
That’s my daily mantra!
Tony:
Terrific, yeah!
Colin:
Jenny, if our listeners want to donate to the Bob Brown Foundation to help this struggle against your own government, how do they do it? What’s the website name?
Jenny:
So bobbrown.org.au is our website where you can donate directly to the Bob Brown Foundation. We love being able to have the support of people, because whilst people can take action with us, we have people from all walks of life. It’s also really important to recognise that there are folks who will stand up and take action on behalf of people across the planet. And so you can donate directly to support us. There’s people also who have left bequests of their funds when they pass away. We have people who give us large donations, small donations and we always put it to very good use with taking action, or other campaign activities.
Colin:
You’ve got a huge problem when comes to priorities, don’t you? At the moment you are prioritising the swift parrot. But you’ve got a huge problem with the salmon fishing all around the coast of Tasmania. It is not just one area, is it? They’re everywhere! And they’re causing problems everywhere in Tasmania.
moment you’re advertising
Jenny:
Yeah, we do. You know, my generation… I worry about the next generation because, you know, I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better. And I just think that, you know, mobilising people in nonviolence… I know, I think it’s also a really great thing that we train people in nonviolent action every first Saturday of the month. But just having the opportunity to talk about nonviolence in this world that faces off so much violence.
So, Colin, you’re so right. I mean, we face so many problems with prioritising what species or what place, what forest, you know, what part of the coast to focus on. And so, yeah, if we can just at one point be thankful for the fact that we are engaging people in non-violence in such a violent world – is one take home that we aspire to do.
Colin:
Yep. Well, more power to you. More non-violent power to you!
Jenny:
Yeah, that’s right. Thank you! Thanks you three for being fabulously getting together for podcasting and spreading the word of people. It’s so good!
Colin:
Jenny, it’s been an absolute pleasure.
Mik:
And so, Jenny, so here’s our tribute, you could call it, to you and to Bob Brown and his foundation and of course to the swift parrot:
. . .
SONG:
‘Take Action for Earth’ – mp3 audio
Verse 1:
The parrot
Green wings cutting southern skies
Across the strait, off it flies
The fastest parrot ever known
breeds in this one place alone
Tasmania’s forests, ancient and wide
hollows where the swift parrots hide
But chainsaws roars through the trees
Profit to be made, families to feed
Bridge:
Less than a thousand birds left in the sky
The sawdust rises while the parrots die
Money speaks louder than Earth
Profit decides what life is worth
Chorus:
Stand for the forests
Stand for the truth
Stand for the future
we owe to our youth
Take action for Earth!
Jenny: “Take action for Earth”
Colin: “Yeah, take action for Earth!”
Jenny: “That is my daily mantra.”
Verse 2:
A hollow tree a hundred years
Falls in seconds to market gears
Shipped away as chips and boards
Sold through warehouses and corporate doors
A bird that crossed a thousand seas
Returns each year to these same trees
But every season fewer come
till deathly silence beats the drum
Bridge:
Less than a thousand birds left in the sky
The sawdust rises while the parrots die
Money speaks louder than Earth
Profit decides what life is worth
Outro:
Bob stands in the forest
Eighty-one years strong
Defending a species
Correcting what’s wrong
Then history’s pages
Will one day say
Who stood for life
And who turned away
We rise for the forest
Take action for Earth!
. . .
David Pocock: (50:11)
It’s not ours, it’s just our turn. Almost 100 years ago, one of the fathers of conservation, Aldo Leopold, said we abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. And I think this whole EPPC debate has shown just how far we have to go in this place when it comes to the way that we think and talk and act towards the land that we live on, the land that sustains us.
We’ve seen this whole debate being about the politics of it rather than actually turning our mind to the places that sustain us, the places and species that we love and that we rely on for our very survival.
As farmer and conservationist Doug Durran puts it, “…it’s not ours, it’s just our turn.” We have to start to think about this differently. We have to start to think longer term, to start to make decisions that we can actually hand this incredible continent to future generations, to young people in better shape. And that takes political leadership. That takes people who are actually thinking beyond the next election. And I haven’t seen that from the Albanese government when it comes to the environment, when it comes to nature. And so I urge the government to think longer term. Let’s change the way we talk about nature in this country. We are entirely reliant on it. It is in our self-interest as a species to actually act in a way that aligns with that. It’s not ours, it’s just our turn.
Bob Brown – excerpt of a recent Senate inquiry statement of his: (51:42)
I point to just one of many studies which are available to this committee and to the whole of this parliament, and that’s the British Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and the University of Exeter which is known as the world’s expertise centre on climate change. And they look at a two degree centigrade rise in temperature over base levels by 2050 and we’re going to overshoot that on current estimates with Australia at the forefront of putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Given a tripping of tipping points like the melting of green land which we’re seeing at the moment and the failure of the Amazon to absorb carbon but in fact become an emitter which we’re seeing at the moment continuing the worst case scenario is a 25 per cent collapse of the global productivity that is the global economy by 2050 that’s when our children now are 25 we’re not talking about grandkids we’re talking about our children and two billion people dead.
ACF Instagram video: (52:52)
I love a sunburned country, a land of fragile plains,
of droughts met long by warming years, of floods of record pains.
I love her scarred and burning, not just for what she’s been,
but for the fight she asks of us, to keep her living green.
I love her scorched horizons, of seasons torn apart,
The floods that come more furious, the fires that sear the heart.
A land made hot and angry, pollution we export to burn,
The extraction of coal and gas, pollies failed for years to turn,
I love her though betrayed now by men who knew the cost,
who sold her future cheaply, for profits gained not lost
While Woodside drilled her sea beds, while Santos fanned the flames,
the storms grew wild, the rivers rose, and no one bore the blame.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CALENDARS
Events we have talked about in The Sustainable Hour
Events in Victoria
The following is a collation of Victorian climate change events, activities, seminars, exhibitions, meetings and protests. Most are free, many ask for RSVP (which lets the organising group know how many to expect), some ask for donations to cover expenses, and a few require registration and fees. This calendar is provided as a free service by volunteers of the Victorian Climate Action Network. Information is as accurate as possible, but changes may occur.
PETITIONS AND OPEN LETTERS
you could add your name to
→ List of running petitions where we encourage you to add your name
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
THE SUSTAINABLE HOUR ON AIR
LIVE STREAMING
on Wednesdays
The Sustainable Hour is streamed live on the Internet and broadcasted on FM airwaves in the Geelong region every Wednesday from 11am to 12pm (Melbourne time): 94.7 FM.
→ To listen to the program on your computer or phone, go to www.947thepulse.com where you then click on ‘Listen’ on the top right of the page.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ARCHIVE
Over 600 hours of sustainable podcast episodes
Listen to all of The Sustainable Hour radio shows as well as our special Regenerative Hours, Climate Revolution and Force of Life episodes in full length.
→ Archive on climatesafety.info – with additional links
→ Archive on podcasts.apple.com – phone friendly archive
NEWSLETTER
Receive our podcast newsletter in your mailbox
We send a newsletter out approximately four-six times a year. Email address and surname is mandatory – all other fields are optional. You can unsubscribe at any time.
FOLLOW, INTERACT AND SHARE
The Sustainable Hour in social media
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheSustainableHour → Front covers
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/TheSustainableHour
• Blue Sky: www.bsky.app/profile/thesustainablehour.bsky.social
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/SustainableHour
(NB: we stopped using X/Twitter after it was hijacked-acquired by climate deniers)
• YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/thesustainablehour
Great if you’ll share the news about this podcast episode on your social media platforms!
→ Podcasts and posts on this website about the climate emergency
Sharing solutions that make the climate safer and our cities more liveable