Brown Mountain – final court orders
Environment East Gippsland has welcomed the final orders in the Brown Mountain landmark trial handed down in the Supreme Court on the 14th September.
“VicForests must pay 90% of our costs, as well as all their own costs, for this very long and expensive trial.
“DSE will need to undertake a series of surveys for two species of frogs and the spot tailed quoll in the coupes, there must be a review of protection areas for Sooty and Powerful owls and special conservation zones must be created for two species of gliders and the potoroo.
The Court has ordered that EEG receive copies of all these surveys and conservation measures once they are completed. Only once all this is done to the satisfaction of DSE, can VicForests even contemplate logging in the coupes. It remains to be seen if all this is undertaken in good faith by DSE, whether any areas will remain available for logging.
“In a victory for an open and transparent conservation process quite unlike what has occurred in the past, the Court has ordered that all these surveys, maps of new protection zones and conservation measures be notified to EEG.
That way we and the public of Victoria we can see whether his Honour’s orders have been carried out.”
“It really is a very strong judgment for us. We have been vindicated in taking on the big boys of logging.”
“If we had not risked everything in defence of our forests, VicForests would have logged Brown Mountain’s old growth forests by now. The logging would have been illegal, and it would have killed a range of protected wildlife that they denied was there.”