Latest News

December 15, 2015

Conservationists from Goongerah Environment Centre (GECO) have halted logging operations in high conservation value forest on the St Patrick’s River in East Gippsland today due to multiple breaches of the law. A person is positioned in a tree platform 30m off the ground. The...

December 11, 2015

As world leaders meet in Paris to reach an agreement on how to tackle climate change, GECO has embarked on an ambitious project to measure the carbon stocks in old growth forests of East Gippsland. The tall wet Eucalyptus forests of south east Australia...

November 11, 2015

Recent surveying in the Cottonwood range forests has revealed vast areas of failed regeneration after logging. VicForests recently added 9 new logging areas (coupes) to their plans in the Cottonwood range, more than 20 coupes are on the logging plans in the Cottonwood. Logging...

October 23, 2015

GECO joined Fauna and Flora Research collective and Environment East Gippsland yesterday to meet with the Department of Envrionment Land Water and Planning (DELWP). The meeting was to discuss acceptable protections for rainforest, cool temperate mixed forest and large old trees. The consultation resulted...

October 15, 2015

It took three years to get a response, but last week we received notification from the Victorian government that a 'protection' zone will be declared in an area of forest where we filmed an Endangered long-footed potoroo. It sounds good right? But the problem...

October 01, 2015

Twenty five students from the Australian Student Environment Network (ASEN) converged on Goongerah this week to take part in a citizen science survey camp. Students from Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Canberra attended to learn about the ecology of the forests of East Gippsland and...

September 26, 2015

Environment Minister Lisa Neville MP has told ABC radio that the forest where GECO recently photographed the endangered Large brown tree frog will not be logged! The frog was thought to have gone extinct until April this year when it was rediscovered by a...

September 25, 2015

The endangered Large Brown Tree-frog (Litoria littlejohnii) has been detected in an area earmarked for logging. The frog was through to be extinct until April this year when GECO volunteer Rena Garborov rediscovered it in Mt. Jersey forests near Goongerah. GECO has submitted the...

August 12, 2015

The State government has issued fines to three citizen science surveyors who reported illegal rainforest logging. Despite the State government committing to implementing a raft of changes to logging rules in light of the information we provided, fines have been issued for entering logging...

August 10, 2015

Thom Mitchell The Victorian government has fined a conservationist who exposed what the Environment Minister described as “very disturbing” and “extremely poor practice” logging, despite reports he helped prepare becoming a catalyst for substantial reform of industry guidelines. Originally published by New Matilda: https://newmatilda.com/2015/08/10/victorian-government-thanks-conservationists-exposing-disturbing-logging-practices-fining/...

July 27, 2015

The state government is seeking to change the legal definition of "Cool Temperate Mixed Forest" after a GECO report provided evidence of illegal logging in this rare and threatened forest type. We fear that changing the definition will most likely water down protections to...

July 24, 2015

With recent changes to the renewable energy target, the burning of native forest wood waste can once  again earn credits for generating clean energy, but there's dispute about whether burning native forest waste for energy is 'carbon neutral'. Background Briefing reports. Originally published on...

July 23, 2015

The winter Citizen Science camp was a massive success. Despite 100mm of rain the week before, freezing temperatures and snow on the hills above us, 60 people braved the cold to come out. Lots of enthusiastic people from all across Australia made the journey...

July 20, 2015

Our citizen science program has made a really exciting discovery! Earlier this year we conducted an intensive rainforest survey of an area of rainforest in Kuark and identified a species that has never been recorded in East Gippsland. We sent the fern to the...

July 19, 2015

Environment East Gippsland's (EEG) Court case concerning protection of Owl habitat reached an out of Court settlement late last week. This has resulted in 2000 hectares of forest being set aside in Owl habitat reserves. Some areas to be set aside are forests where...