ABOUT GECO

ACTIONS & EVENTS

HOTSPOTS!

DOWNLOADS

FOREST INFO

LINKS

CONTACT US

ARCHIVE

Goongerah
Environment
Centre

LARGE TRACT OF WET FOREST TARGETTED FOR DESTRUCTION IN NEW TIMBER PLAN

THE DEFENCE OF GOOLENGOOK CELEBRATED!

KICK REFLEX OUT OF NATIVE FORESTS

TREESIT STOPS FIVE MACHINES ON AUSTRALIA DAY

SIX ARRESTS - SURVEY ROAD GOES OLD SCHOOL

TREESITTER FOILS POLICE -SURVEY ROAD BLOCKADE ENTERS DAY 4

FOREST STOP WORK ACTION FOR CLIMATE

COURT INJUNCTION HALTS LOGGING AT BROWN MOUNTAIN

BUNGYWARR LOGGING STOPPED - OLD GROWTH, RAINFOREST AND HABITAT

SIX LOGGING MACHINES STOPPED AT SURVEY ROAD

CRAYFISH STOPS LOGGING AT BROWN MOUNTAIN

STONY CK LOGGING STOPPED BY TREE PLATFORMS AGAIN

GOOLENGOOK: PROTECTED AT LAST!

GOOLENGOOK 2002

GECO is an independent grassroots environment organisation based in East Gippsland. We are dedicated to protecting the remaining old growth forests of the region.




Goolengook Celebration
6-8 MARCH 2010

Latest News from Ms Citizen
last updated 25 jan 10

Stories from the front line

New GECO blog

GECO on Facebook



VICFORESTS: MAKING SURE THERE ARE NONE

Vicforests recently removed 90 scheduled logging coupes in East Gippsland from the Timber Release Plan (aka WUP Wood Utilisation Plan) and added 137 new coupes. Therefore this year 47 new coupes have been allocated ranging from 18 hectares in size to 120 hectares in size. The coupes are classed as either Seed Tree Regeneration (this means clearfell) or a thinnings coupe.

Thinnings coupes in the past have been scheduled in forest that has been previously clearfelled. They clear part of the forest to give more room to their crop (their crop being our state forest). Of these 137 new scheduled coupes however there are no thinnings coupes in previously clearfelled or regenerated forest. They are all scheduled in mature forest otherwise known as old-growth forest and forest that has been selectively logged or burnt by wild fire (in this case the 39 fires).

One may ask how do you thin an old-growth forest, answer you can't which means we are now seeing 120 hectare clearfells in East Gippsland. So maybe this is why VicForest were not too effective in informing the public about these changes.

With the corporatisation of our forests comes an even further breakdown of public accesss to input and knowledge of what is going on in our state forests. When forestry was under the Department of Sustainability and Environment there was a public consultation period each year where it was advertised that the public could view changes in the log harvest schedule and make submissions. This process was advertised in newspapers and on websites. It wasn't very useful for those who wished to conserve high conservation forests as comments on submissions were generally ignored but at least it was a transparent process. The information was more publicly accessible and anyone who was concerned could have their say.

These recent VicForest changes however, dropped this process. They informed local environment groups by mail and said if we wished to make comments we could but there "amendments" are fool-proof anyway. The word "amendments" has carefully been used for VicForest as the Environment minister signed an approval of any future amendments to the Timber Release Plan last year.

They passed one of the biggest changes we've seen in the last 7 years to the timber plans yet this is still classified as an "amendment" for local foresters to decide what gets logged and what doesn't. Should it be part of a more formal process? The fact that VicForest classified these changes as just "amendments" leads to them not needing to post it on their website for public comment as no-one but those few local environment groups are actually interested in the fate of Victoria's old-growth forest????


DSE RESTRUCTURE = PRIVATISATION

On 1 August 2004 the Department of Sustainability and Environment will be overhauled, and the commercial forestry arm will become a new commercial entity called Vicforests. They will be a statutory body responsible for managing timber harvesting, including marking of coupes and managing logging coupes which will be leased from the DSE. It remains unclear who will be responsible for monitoring coupes for breaches, other than the EPA, who are unable to do comprehensive auditing of all coupes. The new entity will rely solely on royalties alone and will not get any government funding.

The DSE will be responsible for fire, roading, recreation, biodiversity, pests and weeds and the Forest Management Plan. They will now create the Timber Resource Plan, which will be a 15yr plan of the areas that VicForests can harvest. Vicforests will then creat five year Wood Utilisation Plans based on this. This will now be area based, not volume based.

It appears that the government will still be subsidising logging by being responsible for roading. Much of the areas that do not create revenue, such as endangered species protection, research and monitoring, have been left out of the new entity which means that they are likely to remain chronically underfunded and inadequate. The level of public consultation required by the new entity is also likely to be low, and access to information by the public restricted by commercial in confidence requirements.

GOVERNMENT DECLARES MORATORIUM ON GOOLENGOOK

Wednesday 30 October 2002
The Bracks government has announced a moratorium on logging in Goolengook while a study takes place into the viability of protecting the area. The newly formed Victorian Environment Assessment Council has been told to work out a way to protect the area, but may suggest that other areas in Special Protection Zones be swapped with Goolengook if it is protected.

The announcement has been treated with scepticism by environmentalists and logging industry alike, who see it as a pre-election stunt. Obviously, we would not accept other important areas of forest being logged in order to save Goolengook. The government has been offering these types of deals for years and have been rejected.

Logging boss Garry Squires (who has changed his spots yet again and is now head of AHF, not EGL) has called for the logging of national parks if Goolengook is protected. More later...