The Australian Government has lodged a report with the World Heritage Committee that misrepresents the extent of logging in forest surrounding the Tasmanian World Heritage Area, Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said today.

"The Australian Government is putting forward a submission to an international committee that essentially does not tell the truth about what is happening in Tasmania's forests," Senator Brown said.

In the report to the committee the government claims in relation to the Tasmanian forests intergovernmental agreement:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard is allowing her word to be trashed by logging in high-conservation areas that were supposedly protected under an agreement she signed with the government of Tasmania, Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.

Australia's adoption of international obligations to better protect Antarctica's environment is a welcome step, Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.

"I congratulate the Gillard government," Senator Brown said. "While the Madrid Protocol has proved an outstanding international agreement in protecting Antarctica's environment from mining, other threats abound now and will in the future."

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown said the Gillard government should ensure the Parliament debates the US military build-up planned for the NT and the alternative of Australia charting an independent course in the Asia Pacific this century.

"President Obama, who was very warmly welcomed to our nation's capital, today delivered an important speech about America's increased involvement in the Pacific and the economic and military imperatives that lie behind the US plans for Australia," Senator Brown said in Canberra.

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown spoke to 936 ABC Hobart's Leon Compton live from Canberra today about President Obama's visit, the expansion of Australia-US military ties and nuclear proliferation.

"Some might call the predicted thousands of trucks descending on Canberra ending up as hundreds (ABC, 21/8/11) a ‘flop', but these Australians have every right to a peaceful presence on the parliamentary lawns," Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.

"It seems like the prime qualification to be there is to be angry about something - these are Abbott's angry people," Senator Brown said.

"But it seems their views on some issues are fairly shorted sighted, very ‘me-now'."

The Greens Leaders have responded to Premier Lara Giddings’ call for them to show leadership by requesting she meet to discuss options for Tasmania to manage its forests for future business and job creation.  

“The Premier will lead well if she gets off the failed logging trajectory onto promising alternatives,” Senator Brown said at a press conference with Senator Milne and Mr McKim.  

Greens Leader Bob Brown says the Tasmanian forests agreement, to be finalised in a fortnight, would be fixed by the promised 572,000ha of national parks being established forthwith. 

“These forests have been studied and mapped for decades. There have been scientific assessments of their world heritage values since the early 1990s. The only possible glitch is with clearfelled, burnt and degraded areas and Forestry Tasmania knows where all these are. 

The Leader of the Australian Greens, Senator Bob Brown, met with the Chilean Ambassador, His Excellency Pedro Pablo Diaz, yesterday to protest against Chile's plans to place five dams on wild Patagonian rivers for hydroelectricity production.

Senator Brown was jailed for 16 days in 1982-3 for peacefully protesting against plans to dam Tasmania's wild Franklin River (that dam was not built). This week's action follows Australian television coverage of anti-dam protests by tens of thousands of Chileans in Santiago and other cities.

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown says the oil spill catastrophe now threatening the coastline of several US states highlights both the vulnerability of the Australian marine environment to oil spills and the serious incapacity of the industry to control such events.

"A spill like that now unfolding in the US would decimate the Great Barrier Reef or Western Australia's World Heritage Ningaloo Reef for example," said Senator Brown.