Fishy business

In the pure mountain streams of the iconic Kuark forest, just 30 kilometres north-east of Orbost in far East Gippsland, a tiny, critically endangered fish has been found in forest areas subject to logging. Citizen scientists from GECO and the Fauna and Flora Research Collective conducted surveys in the creeks in this part of Kuark …

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Planting The Seed For Proper Forest Management

Nineteen years ago this week, the forest wars were meant to end. Nineteen years ago, the first of 10 Regional Forest Agreements was signed, aimed at weighing up the needs of forest-based industries and conservation within areas of native forest. As the then-Environment Minister Robert Hill said, we were meant to see “more effective management …

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20 year legal exemption must go

Wednesday 3rd February marks the 19th anniversary of an agreement that has allowed the logging industry a legal exemption from Australia’s environment laws. Jill Redwood from Environment East Gippsland, where this exemption from commonwealth laws was first introduced says the Turnbull government is planning to instate another 20 years of this special treatment. “We have …

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Legally exempt extinction?

Our state and federal governments signed away our native forests exactly 19 years ago today (3rd Feb 1997). They were deemed exempt from commonwealth environmental laws. Ever since our forests have fed a massive overseas woodchip market. This immunity from the law will end next year and the Turnbull Government wants to roll over this …

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Greens push for 21st century vision for Australia’s native forests

A year to the day that the first Regional Forest Agreement is due to expire, the Greens are calling for a comprehensive reassessment of how we manage native forests in Australia. “Regional Forest Agreements were meant to bring the forestry industry into the new century, but right now the native forest logging industry is operating …

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Loggers help our cause … AGAIN!

First they spray paint ‘Hug this’ on a chainsawed giant tree (see it here) – now we find this in a lone hollow tree left standing in a clearfell and burnt logged forest – ‘welcome home’.

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Will logging kill a critically endangered fish?

In April last year the East Gippsland Galaxias was listed as Critically Endangered under the states FFG Act. Endemic to a small stretch of waterway in the Arte River system, a tributary of the Goolengook River. The specific name aequipinnis  is from the Latin aequalis, meaning ‘like’ or ‘same’, and pinna, meaning ‘fin’, in reference …

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Will logging kill a critically endangered fish?

In April last year the East Gippsland Galaxias was listed as Critically Endangered under the states FFG Act. Endemic to a small stretch of waterway in the Arte River system, a tributary of the Goolengook River. The specific name aequipinnis  is from the Latin aequalis, meaning ‘like’ or ‘same’, and pinna, meaning ‘fin’, in reference …

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