Australia’s native forests are not only home to some of our most vulnerable and threatened species, they hold critical cultural and ecological value. While native forest logging is being phased out in Western Australia and Victoria, other states are failing to take action to protect these iconic and precious ecosystems from logging.

Join former Senator and Leader of the Australian Greens, Bob Brown and Professor Brendan Mackey, Director of the Griffith Climate Action Beacon at Griffith University, to discuss how native forest logging has been successfully phased out in in other jurisdictions, as well as the opportunities for greater forestry protection and restoration in Australia.

Speakers

Bob Brown is an Environmentalist and his credo is ‘one person, one vote, one value, one planet’. From leading the seven-year campaign to save Tasmania’s wild Franklin River from damming, through thirty-years of helping develop Green politics, along with his advocacy of global democracy, Bob promotes alternatives to humanity’s rapid destruction of life on Earth. Bob served in the Tasmanian Parliament from 1983 to 1993 and led the five Greens in the balance of power after 1989. Besides being jailed for 17 days during the Franklin River blockade in 1982, Bob was locked up for 11 days, and strip-searched five times in 1995 for joining a blockade of bulldozers invading the Tarkine wilderness. In the Senate from 1996, Bob and his fellow Greens failed to convince either of the two old parties on equal marriage, euthanasia laws, compensation for the ‘Stolen Generation’, humane treatment of refugees or ending junk food advertising in children’s tv viewing hours. However he succeeded in interrupting the speech of President George W Bush in 2003 after the illegal invasion of Iraq. Bush later shook his hand. Bob set up the Bob Brown Foundation in 2012, after leaving the Senate in 2012 and is a vigorous national environmental group which takes peaceful direct action to stop environmental vandalism. Its flagship campaigns are to protect Tasmania’s Takayna rainforest, wildlife and Aboriginal heritage and to end native forest logging nationwide. BBF is working to end fish farm feedlots in the seas and to protect Antarctica, including its krill and marine ecosystems. In 2022 Bob took part in The Giants, a feature film about forests.

Polly Hemming is Director of the Australia Institute’s Climate & Energy program. She has extensive experience working in policy, marketing and engagement roles in both not-for-profit and public sectors. Her current work focuses on carbon and environmental markets, climate integrity and greenwashing. Having previously led the development of a government eco-label recognising voluntary climate action by the private sector, she maintains a strong interest in non-state climate ambition and the policies and regulation that interact with this. Polly’s previous roles have included academic publishing, remote Indigenous education, refugee advocacy and science communication, bringing a range of perspectives and experiences to her work.

Prof Brendan Mackey is Director of the Griffith Climate Action Beacon at Griffith University, Queensland. He has a PhD in plant ecology from The Australian National University. He has over 300 academic publications in the fields of climate change research and biodiversity as well as related topics in environmental science and policy. Brendan was a Coordinating Lead Author for the 2022 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC 6th Assessment Report, Working Group II – impacts, vulnerability & adaptation.