After another wonderful, epic, very challenging, roller-coaster year, we are wrapping up our work for 2021 with a look back at what we’ve been up to.
We want to say a massive thank you to every person who donated, shared a post or signed a petition, came out to the forest, especially to support Camp Errinundra earlier this year. We couldn't do what we do without your support.
Keen to kick-start 2022 with a trip to the forests? RSVP to our Defend Errinundra Forest skillshare event on Jan 21-24
We started off the year with a bang and co-published a report, After the Fires with VNPA and other local East Gippsland environment groups which identified key bushfire refuge areas for wildlife and called for their protection. Hundreds took action to sign our petition to back the report’s recommendations and protect our forests in wake of the devastating bushfires.
Then in late January, local community and supporters rallied to defend Errinundra when the bulldozers moved in to log precious unburnt forests. Multiple people were arrested defending the forest, and hundreds came through the camp to take action.
For four months they stood their ground, and finally Environment East Gippsland secured an injunction to stop the logging, and the machines left for good. Two of the areas have now been taken off the logging schedule - a huge win for us and the local community.
We celebrated when logging areas scheduled within the Bidewell Education Reserve were removed from the logging schedule after Bidewell-Maap Elders wrote to the government calling for the areas to be removed. Thankfully, the forests there are protected for now.
We hosted a citizen science camp for regional Victorians and surveyed for gliders, found a giant 14-metre tree in an area scheduled for logging, and marked a walk through the threatened rainforest of Sellers Road, to a huge Cut-tail Ash tree in Errinundra.
We released a new video sharing the story of the Defend Errinundra campaign, and hosted an online webinar with nearly 100 supporters to gear up to defend the forests if the logging machines move back into Errinundra.
We joined 18 other environment groups from across Victoria to co-publish After the Logging, which reveals 1 in 3 areas logged are failing regenerate. Then just last week worked with the ABC to expose the Environment Department’s failure to protect forests which should have been protected for the Greater Glider.
We want to say a huge thank you to all the groups that we’ve worked with this year; Environment East Gippsland, Gippsland Environment Group, Friends of the Earth, VNPA, Fauna and Flora Research Collective and many others.
We’re kickstarting 2022 with a forest skillshare in Errinundra. Come visit the incredible forests of East Gippsland and get involved in the campaign to save them. RSVP HERE
Thanks again especially to all our supporters for keeping up the pressure and all your help to protect our precious forests. As always, we’ll be gearing up again to defend our precious forests next year. See you in the forests very soon.
The forests where we live and work are on the stolen lands of the Bidewell, Gunnai Kurnai, and Monero First Nations Peoples where sovereignty was never ceded. We pay our deepest respects to their Elders past and present, and acknowledge their long and ongoing care and connection to Country. We fight in solidarity, so that custodianship can be restored to Traditional Owner's, who have been caring for Country for thousands of years.