EEG is suing the state government for a fourth time. Legal papers were filed and served on Monday 22nd Sept. Both VicForests and DEPI are being sued. Within the 170,000 hectares of forest that the Goongerah-Deddick summer fires burnt out, were 46 protected zones set aside for threatened owls. These areas would also have supported …
Environment East Gippsland is suing the state government for a fourth time! We lodged the legal papers on Monday 22nd Sept 2014. The summer fires destroyed thousands of hectares of critically important habitat for East Gippsland’s threatened wildlife. This region is the stronghold for large forest owls yet DEPI refuses to urgently review the protection …
Writ and Statement of_Claim (PDF) lodged on Monday 22nd September 2014.
EEG wrote to Ministers Walsh and Smith in April requesting an urgent review of owl zones, but the environment minister refused. Read the letter (PDF) sent to Ministers Walsh and Smith in April 2014 Read Ryan Smith’s reply (PDF)
A wonderful new website designed to look behind the monster that VicForests really is, has just been launched! Enjoy! http://www.vicforests.net/
Feral domestic cats are a global threat to biodiversity and were recently named as the biggest threat to endangered Australian mammals. But what about your pet cat, or the local stray? While any kind of domestic cat can kill wildlife, there’s no “one size fits all” way to manage their impact. Before we figure out …
Abstract Context: The superb lyrebird Menura novaehollandiae is thought to be an important ecosystem engineer that, through its foraging, accelerates the decomposition of litter in Eucalyptus forests. Lyrebird foraging is therefore likely to affect forest fuel loads and hence fire behaviour in these fire-prone forests. In turn, fire is likely to reduce the abundance and …
So why isn’t the Government accepting recommendation 5 of the Hazelwood Mine Fire Inquiry? Peter Ryan claims it’s just too difficult to get carbon monoxide monitoring equipment to a site within 24 hours. Yeah? How long does it take to drive a hand held CO monitoring device from Melbourne to Victoria’s far ends? 6-7 hours …
Does logging affect the fire proneness of forests? This question often arises after major wildfires, but data suggest that answers differ substantially among different types of forest. Logging can alter key attributes of forests by changing microclimates, stand structure and species composition, fuel characteristics, the prevalence of ignition points, and patterns of landscape cover. These …
FOR three years the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission’s independent monitor Neil Comrie has strongly advised the Victorian Government to abandon one of the commission’s recommendations: the call to burn 390,000ha of public land annually for fuel reduction. Yet Environment Minister Ryan Smith is sticking to that target and, even more puzzling, DEPI plans to increase …
