Bob Brown opens his own Photo display at Bodalla.

The "Gallery Bodalla", adjacent to the Post Office, is hosting an impressive collection of Photographs by Senator Bob Brown, Environmental Campaigner par excellence.

The Exhibition of Bob Brown's art works is known as "Tasmania 2" - Weilangta Fundraising Photo Exhibition. For this exhibition, funds raised are being shared with the South East Regional Conservation Alliance.

In truth, the original motivation for Bob's Photo Exhibition is as follows (In Bob Brown's own words):

• "This second photo exhibition is to charm your eye. It also serves the serious purpose of raising money to pay for our initially successful court challenge against logging Wielangta Forest and the habitat of it’s rare and endangered species. The Federal Court ruled that the logging will drive Tasmania’s giant Wedgetailed eagle, Swift parrot and Wielangta stag beetle towards extinction but then on appeal said logging could go ahead and awarded costs against me.
  Forestry Tasmania is demanding $280,000.
  I am not acceding but have no further court of appeal on the judgement.
  This exhibition is a galaxy of Tasmania’s flora, fauna and wild places, and we hope you and your friends can make it to the Gallery on the Princess Highway, Bodalla - running from Saturday 14th March to the 5th of April."
• In this case, Bob Brown is sharing any funds raised with the local anti-logging campaigners in the NSW South Coast.

My own comment is that this situation is a disgrace, because it is a politically motivated cost impost against a private individual. The original court case, under the terms of the EPBC Act was successful. Then the (then) Federal (Howard) Government and the (then) Lennon (Labor) Government (in Tasmania) changed the Regional Forestry Agreement (RFA) to allow clearing of the Tasmanian Tall Forests, even though that involved threatening Federally listed Endangered Species, such as the Swift Parrot (below).

That is pertinent to yesterday's post about the Leafless Tongue Orchids at Jervis Bay being protected, and a previous post I published about the Kangaloon Sun Orchid being "Listed" under the EPBC Act. I know about that, because I nominated it to be listed, following the very precedent of the court case which Bob Brown fought and initially won.

I did not know until today that the Howard Government had colluded to change the RFA to allow the forest clearing to proceed anyway. What a Bastard act!

If you do not appreciate the intricate manoeuverings behind this, you may read the history of the court cases here. You may also read a more hard-hitting commentary about all this, and more shenannigans on Crikey's Environmental Blog.

Today's Art Exhibition was opened by Pru Acton, fashion designer, artist, local resident and Environmental Campaigner.