It's been a while since you've heard from GECO, and even if we haven't had to get our climbing gear out of storage, we have continued our work advocating for forests. 

Despite the official end of native forests logging on January 1st, 2024, the threats to our forests continue and are far from over. There are a few key areas we have been paying close attention in order to properly restore and protect native forests once and for all.

Great Outdoors Taskforce

Last April, the Victorian Government announced the establishment of the Victorian Great Outdoors Taskforce (GOT). According to the Premier's announcement, the purpose of this taskforce is "to inform the future use and management of Victoria’s forest estate," which includes 1.8 million hectares (of which East Gippsland covers almost two-thirds) previously allocated to VicForests for logging. The role of the GOT, the announcement continues, will be to "consider opportunities to protect the environment and support recreational, social, and commercial opportunities in their recommendations to the Government," with an expected delivery of these recommendations in 12 months.

GECO, along with representatives from other environmental organizations and the community, met with Taskforce panel members Lisa Neville, Graham Deer, and Terry Richardson last June in East Gippsland. We emphasised the importance of conducting thorough environmental assessments to ensure a rigorous evaluation of our forests.

We hold great concern for the lack of specific ecological or zoological expertise and limited land management experience on the panel and for the timeframe this could take before forests are given the protection they deserve.

The Victorian Environmental Advisory Committee (VEAC), together with rigorous scientific assessment is the best vehicle to achieve the best outcomes for our forests. The GOT panel chair, Lisa Neville, assured us that a VEAC assessment will be conducted for East Gippsland, aiming to have a report ready by the end of the year.

Despite the assurances, we haven't seen an official announcement from either government or VEAC, or received an offical response from the letter we co-signed with 20 other environmental organisations from Gippsland and Victoria requesting the minister to engage VEAC and deliver on the government's promise to “[d]eliver the largest expansion to our public forests reserve system in our state’s history.”

The letter stressed that "The forests of Central Gippsland, the North East and East Gippsland regions are of immeasurable ecological, cultural and social value, including outstanding universal values of World Heritage, they are now recovering from recent severe fires, yet arobust government commitment to their protection remains unclear. To the contrary, important habitat and cultural landscapes continue to be logged and cleared by Forest Fire Management Victoria operations."

For these reasons, we "urgently request that VEAC be instructed to undertake a prompt and thorough assessment of the ecological values of Central Gippsland, the North East, and East Gippsland, to secure their permanent protection."We've sent a letter to FFMV requesting more detail on the planned works in Errinundra. We have been informed that a response is being prepared. We will continue to insist until we receive assurances that any works planned for Errinundra will have the required biodiversity safeguards in place.

A simple 'received' letter was returned by mail early August, two months later than the joint letter was sent. Since then, just crickets.

Why VEAC matters

VEAC provides the government with independent advice on matters related to the protection and management of the environment and natural resources on public land in Victoria. While their assessments are bound by the terms of reference provided by the Environment Minister and the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council Act 2001, VEAC remains an essential tool for providing solid evidence to protect the unique biodiversity of East Gippsland's forests.

VEAC and DEECA (former DELWP) have decades of data on forest biodiversity values of these regions. For example, VEAC’s Conservation values of state forests report^[1], published in 2017, found:

The largest blocks of land that make the highest relative contribution to forest biodiversity conservation (in red) are in the Central Highlands (Toolangi-Woods Point-Erica area), South Gippsland, the high country between Bright and Omeo, and nearly all of East Gippsland.

These are some of the reasons GECO and other groups wrote a letter to the minister to request an official VEAC assessment of East Gippsland forests (as well as forests in Central Gippsland, and the North West).

Traditional Owners voice

A crucial component of the future of our forests will be the aspirations of Traditional Owners. GECO has always walked alongside mob in allyship, supporting their fight to heal, protect, and practice culture on Country. We raised this very issue with the Great Outdoors Taskforce and will continue to advocate for the inclusion of Traditional Owners in the decision-making process, ensuring they have a seat at the table to voice their aspirations for forests.

Fire Breaks in Errinundra

As recent events in the Yarra Ranges National Park brought to the surface, ongoing threats for our forests are a constant reminder of the work still ahead. Forest Fire Management Victoria and their evidence-poor Strategic Fuel Breaks Program, have now engaged the majority of VicForests logging contractors to conduct works for 5 more years, at a cost of more than $200m. FFMV describes the type of work they're employed to do, which includes in Victoria the construction of 6000km of strategic fuel breaks until 2030, tree felling or cutting, supporting planned burns, amongst others.

In the case of East Gippsland, we are concerned about potential works on the Errinundra Plateau. Errinundra hosts a number of threatened species, many of which are present near or adjacent to the roadside. These include hollow-bearing trees, cool-temperate rainforest, Watson's tree frogs, and greater gliders.

FFMV Strategic Fuel Break Plan indicates mechanical treatment in several roads with high conservation value forests, including inside the Errinundra National Park:

We've sent a letter to FFMV to request more detail as to the planned works in Errinundra. We have been told a response is being prepared. We will keep insisting until we receive assurances that any works planned for Errinundra have the required biodiversity safeguards in place. 

Private land logging goes rife

With the end of industrial-scale native logging on public land, pressure has now shifted to forests in private hands, and we have seen evidence of illegal logging occurring throughout East Gippsland.

We discovered a forest had been cleared near Club Terrace. We submitted a report to the East Gippsland Shire Council, to which they indicated that a permit had been issued for clearing vegetation in 2006. With subsequent extensions, it was allowed to go unmitigated until 2023, when the logging took place. There was no reference or indication of pre- or post-logging surveys or inspections by the Shire.

Patch of forest near Club Terrace, August 2023.	Image showing the now logged forest on the same spot in November, 2023.

Currently, local councils, including East Gippsland Shire, lack the mechanisms or expertise to properly monitor logging occurring on private property (with or without permits) in accordance with the Code of Practice for Timber Production.

We are extremely concerned that logging on private property across the region will continue to escalate exponentially without proper checks and balances in place. Just in the last year, at least seven other instances of potential illegal clearing have been documented by local groups Environment East Gippsland and Gippsland Environment Group.

While we will continue to press local government to uphold their responsibilities, we acknowledge that this issue has been dumped on them by the State Government, and it will ultimately require the intervention of the Environment Minister to prevent the continuation of a logging industry that has already caused so much harm to our forests and biodiversity.

What’s next

If you've made it this far, it's because you deeply care about the future of our forests. You have a crucial role in holding the government accountable for their responsibility to protect biodiversity and ensure the health of our forests for a safe climate future. In the coming weeks and months, we'll be reaching out, inviting you to have your say on the future of our forests. Stay tuned, and if you haven't already, subscribe to our email list to stay in the loop.

For our forests.