Gippsland Environment Group Inc
Lobbying against environmental threats on the unceded lands of the GunaiKurnai, Yaitmathang, Ngarigo and Bidwell Peoples
Logging News and Media
Why native forest logging is the ‘zombie’ industry that won’t die
The timber mills that haven’t shut their doors continue to process native hardwood timbers – now fed by private landholders felling forests on their properties, and the government’s 300 per cent expansion of bushfire “fuel reduction” targets.
Bianca Hall THE AGE September 13, 2024
Logging by another name – ‘Forest Gardening’
By Gary Murray, Jim Everett-puralia meenamatta, Chris Taylor and David Lindenmayer
Sep 6, 2024
Associate Professor Phil Zylstra's response on X (Twitter) to Forests Foundation
"Dja Dja Wurrung traditional owners are concerned that land has been returned to them dense with young trees instead of widely-spaced older trees. Foresters are telling them the widely-spaced forest can be brought back by mechanical thinning. Here's the issue"
08 August 2024
Forests Foundation accused of 'greenwashing on steroids'
The former CEO of VicForests has teamed up with other powerful industry bosses to set up a new organisation called 'The Healthy Forests Foundation' which would hire loggers and logging lobbyists from VicForests and elsewhere
08 August 2024
Forests Foundation accused of 'greenwashing on steroids'
The 'Healthy Forests Foundation' name sounds like an organisation aiming to save forests. But critics say it's greenwashing on steroids... with the board comprised of some of the country's most powerful loggers.
08 August 2024
Has logging really stopped in VIC?
What the death of an endangered glider tells us.
By itself, the death of one glider would be sad. But its death speaks to a larger problem. Three kinds of logging are continuing in Victoria’s forests, for fuel breaks, salvage logging after windstorms, and logging on private land.
The Conversation: Lindenmayer, Taylor, Ashman
20 May 2024
Devastating find at bottom of the tree despite repeated warnings
Conservationists have called the find 'disgraceful' and called on the state government's loggers to cease their operations.
Coalition of environmentalists calls on Premier Jacinta Allan to abolish VicForests
"VicForests has systematically breached the public's trust and abjectly failed Victorians on every measure — economically, socially and environmentally"
It's time to wind up VicForests
Sixty environment, community and legal organisations have signed onto a letter calling to wind up VicForests.
October 2023
State logging agency VicForests deregistered
State owned logging company VicForests has been deregistered as a government business according to a government gazette, as of September 5 2023. Joint media release - Victorian Forest Alliance and Friends of the Earth Melbourne
PARK WATCH Article June 2023
VNPA Executive Director Matt Ruchel asks if rogue logging will become the next forest-eating monster now we’ve (almost) banished VicForests
An extraordinary victory that was decades in the making: the Victorian government has announced native forest logging will end by 1 January 2024.
This is only possible thanks to the countless citizen scientists, community groups, forest activists and Traditional Owners who have fought tirelessly to protect native forests.
Legals summary by Environment Justice Australia
June 2023
Office of the Conservation Regulator acts on our survey report
The presence of Alpine Tree Frogs will trigger a 50Ha exclusion zone over forest scheduled for logging in the headwaters of the Little Dargo River.
Activists have defied what they say is are "draconian" Victorian laws, taking to different bush areas statewide to survey for protected species on the same day the legislation came into effect.
‘Protection zones’ for endangered possums already logged, environment groups say
Forest areas the Andrews government recently set aside to protect the endangered greater glider had been logged before they were gazetted, providing scant additional habitat for the rare possum.
The Vanishing Old Growth forests
The claim that 90,000 hectares of old growth had been protected from logging did not match the reality and zones designated as old growth on the map the Andrews government released continued to be logged.
Sixty endangered Greater gliders found in Victorian forests tagged for logging
Night surveys by citizen scientists across the state revealed gliders, which could trigger court injunction to prevent logging in 12 areas. The greater glider – one of the world’s largest gliding mammals – was listed as endangered earlier this year, only six years after first appearing on the national list of threatened species.
Citizen scientists find 60 endangered Greater Gliders in mass survey effort across Victoria
Citizen scientists from community groups across Victoria took part in a night of surveying for endangered Greater Gliders. Surveys were carried out from Toolangi, Black Range near Taggerty, Warburton in the Central Highlands, Alberton West in Gippsland, Colquhoun State Forest in East Gippsland, and Wombat State Forest in the Central West.
The Victorian Forest Alliance October 2022
Protecting Old Growth Forests
GunaiKurnai Country: While it may be an unconventional alliance, GunaiKurnai Elders, forest groups and High Plains graziers have united in a fight to protect the last old forests of East Gippsland. The message is clear END NATIVE FOREST LOGGING NOW.
VicForests and it's regulator, referred to the anti-corruption watchdog
Allegations reported by the ABC since 2018
The ABC has reported allegations VicForests engaged in "spying" and illegal logging on public land. A Greens MP has asked IBAC and the ombudsman to investigate. Another group has also alleged corrupt conduct by the regulator and Victoria's environment department
The ABC reveals alarming evidence that logged forests aren’t always being grown back, undermining the industry’s claim to sustainability.
Sections of logged state forests have been classified as ‘regenerated’ despite not being so — and have been handed back to the public as little more than weed-infested fields.
After the Logging Report
Governments justify native forest logging by promising that they regrow forests “like for like”. This promise is used to justify exempting native forest logging from federal environment laws. This report presents new evidence that contradicts these claims. It is based on data obtained under Freedom of Information laws and ground-checks of logged areas in the public native forests of eastern Victoria. Full report by Margaret Blakers
Lidia Thorpe Time to Heal Country
“I invite everyone, whether or not you are First Nations, to stand together and demand that our leaders do more to heal Country, to ensure the air that we breathe and water we drink is clean and healthy and to stop selling out to billionaire and corporations at the expense of the rest of us”
Graziers and Greenies unite in ‘drive to save the forest'
‘I’m coming on 73, and I’ll be in front of
a bulldozer if logging starts.’ Cattle grazier Ray Anderson. This is a story of unlikely alliances: a family of alpine cattle graziers and environmentalists joining forces for the first time in an attempt to stop logging in Victoria’s high country.
Dismay as VicForests allows logging of unburnt forest in East Gippsland for TAFE training
Publicly-owned forest agency VicForests has allowed an unburnt coupe at Nowa Nowa, four hours east of Melbourne, to be logged by Gippsland TAFE students for training.
It's like killing us off
“The State needs to allow conversation with Traditional Owners who are trying to protect country, not just the registered Aboriginal parties. They need to open the room up and we need have all the experts in the room. We have experts who tell us there are gliders in there. We’ve got experts that say this type of logging is not good, so let’s get them all in the room.”
Logging Review could come too late
The Morrison government has given the green light to a 12-month review of logging operations in Victoria, but community members say its findings will come too late to stop environmental damage and fail to scrutinise NSW forestry.
Nippon Paper urged to scrap VIC timber
Environment groups urge Nippon Paper to scrap Victorian timber from supply chain
The Guardian 26 June 2020
Injunction again stops logging
VicForests, has again had a legal injunction halt its operations, after the Supreme Court heard allegations it had breached logging regulations in 14 coupes in the Central Highlands
VicForests says experiment 'very likely' to kill threatened glider, continues research
A government-owned logging company is conducting a controversial experiment expected to kill native animals that are already heading toward extinction