The government announced the protection of 90,000ha of old growth forests, but VicForests' have been left in charge of finding and protecting them using an inadequate field verification tool which declassifies old growth forest. The Environment Departments' Office of Conservation Regulator (OCR) are currently seeking feedback on that tool.

Email the OCR now, field verification is only necessary outside the mapping, and VicForests' can't be left to regulate themselves.

UPDATE: Submissions have now closed as of 10 January 2020

Goongerah Environment Centre and Friends of the Earth have today welcomed the Victorian government announcement of protection of 96,000 hectares of forests in eastern Victoria and complete and immediate protection of 90,000 hectares of old growth forest, but say more details and maps are needed to ensure the announcement results in lasting and effective protection. 

Over 100 people attended a snap vigil for Victoria's forest dependent threatened species on the steps of Victorian parliament house yesterday.

The vigil was called just four days ago in response the the Victorian and Federal government's decision to extend the East Gippsland Regional Forest Agreement (RFA).

The RFA exempts logging from complying with federal environment laws that protect threatened species. It has been a disaster for forest wildlife and it's extension is set to lock on more legally exempt destruction of critically important habitat.

Today is National Threatened Species Day, held each year to commemorate the tragic death of the last Tasmanian Tiger that died in captivity in Hobart in 1936.

We teamed up with other citizen science groups Wildlife of the Central Highlands (WOTCH) and Fauna and Flora Research Collective (FFRC) to organise an event at the Treasury building in Melbourne.