Gippsland Environment Group Inc
Lobbying against environmental threats on the unceded lands of the GunaiKurnai, Yaitmathang, Ngarigo and Bidwell Peoples
Office of the Conservation Regulator acts on our survey report - Little Dargo River
May 2023
On the eve of Victorian government’s introduction of draconian forest laws to prevent citizen scientists accessing scheduled logging coupes to survey for endangered species, East Gippsland environment groups were notified that their survey records of the critically endangered Alpine Tree Frog at Dargo High Plains have been verified.
The joint groups’ survey in February 2021 recorded Alpine Tree Frog Litoria verreauxii alpina in scheduled logging coupes on the edge of the Dargo High Plains. This week the Office of the Conservation Regulator has confirmed the records. This stand of beautiful old montane forest is now protected!
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.
More than two years ago Gippsland Environment Group, Environment East Gippsland, Friends of Bats and Habitat Gippsland, Friends of Little Dargo and Rakali Ecological Consulting jointly surveyed for Alpine Tree Frogs and other threatened species. This survey was in the vicinity of recently logged ‘Jones Creek’ coupe and along King Spur in the Alpine National Park – where VicForests planned to construct a logging road to access coupes on the east side of the Little Dargo River.
