An urgent bid to prevent logging in habitat of the critically endangered swift parrot in Tasmania will likely be heard by the Federal Court early next year.
The Bob Brown Foundation has applied for an injunction to protect more than 3200 hectares of native forest in the island's east.
Justice Duncan Kerr on Tuesday set down a hearing for January 11, saying it could have been held earlier if not for the Christmas break.
The court was told several experts will front the hearing which centres around two logging coups.
Lawyer representing state-owned forestry company Sustainable Timber Tasmania, Shaun McElwaine, told the court there is no valid case as there are exclusion areas in the coups.
He said old growth trees, the likely nesting sites of swift parrots, had been mapped and can't be logged.
Justice Duncan Kerr has ordered the Bob Brown Foundation to file a more precise statement of claim.
The foundation says the Eastern Tiers forest has been identified as important habitat by scientific experts and is being currently logged or is slated to soon be logged.
They say an injunction to stop logging is urgently needed amid the parrot's summer breeding season.
Former Greens leader Bob Brown was arrested twice last week, along with several other activists, at protests in the area.
Tasmania's Resources Minister Guy Barnett described the protests as an outrageous attack on jobs.
A recent study revealed there were fewer than 300 of the migratory swift parrots remaining in Australia.
In a separate court matter, Dr Brown has taken Sustainable Timber Tasmania, and the state and federal governments, to the Federal Court over forestry agreements his foundation believes are unlawful.
Judges have reserved their decision.
