UPDATE: THE Victorian Government will not say how much it has spent to buy the Heyfield timber mill. A spokesman for the Government said the figure was confidential, but The Weekly Times understands the business was independently valued at close to $40 million. Employment Minister Wade Noonan will be responsible for the timber mill, which …
Victoria’s state-owned logging company breached rules protecting native animals and rainforests almost 30 times over three years, environment groups allege in a new report. The report comes after a dead koala was found in a logged section of forest in the Acheron Valley near Marysville that was home to the endangered Greater Glider. As revealed …
Gliders are listed as threatened by both state and federal governments, but they are not protected by legislation. Logging has begun of trees inhabited by the threatened greater gliders in a forest also inhabited by Victoria’s faunal emblem, the threatened Leadbeater’s possum. Protections for the remaining Leadbeater’s possum population – believed to be fewer than …
Last weekend, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull flew to Launceston for the Tasmanian Liberals’ yearly conference. Accompanied by Premier Will Hodgman, Turnbull’s first stop was the timber yard of logging company Neville-Smith Forest Products, once a part of the now-fallen Gunns logging empire. Twenty years after John Howard signed the first Regional Forest Agreement with Tasmania, …
The Victorian government this week took the unusual step of buying the Australian Sustainable Hardwoods mill in Heyfield, east Gippsland. The reality of our times is one in which many firms in many industries face uncertain and perilous futures. The role of government is to ensure the necessary corrections and support needed by the economy …
The Victorian government’s decision to appropriate a large undisclosed sum of taxpayers’ money to buy a struggling timber mill nobody else wanted to acquire appears more driven by dubious politics than by rigorous public policy. The government has not revealed how much it has agreed to pay Australian Sustainable Hardwood for the mill in Heyfield, …
The Victorian Government has struck a deal to keep open Australia’s largest hardwood sawmill, at Heyfield in Victoria’s east, but workers are warning up to 20 contractors could be out of work in weeks. The mill’s operator, Australian Sustainable Hardwoods (ASH), had been locked in a dispute with the Government and state-owned logging company VicForests …
A dead koala has been found between fallen trees in a logged forest that the Andrews government could have protected – had it not ignored advice from its own scientific committee. The Sunday Age has obtained graphic images of the lifeless animal slumped over branches in the Acheron Valley north of Warburton, in a confronting example …
Throwing forests into furnaces to supposedly help our climate has been the dream of the native forest logging industry for years. First our governments and the CEFC are coal-captured and now logger-captured. No. It’s definately NOT carbon neutral. A shame this story repeated the lie that burning forests reduces emissions. It is in fact THREE …
Background Greater Glider populations are suffering across Australia. This is especially so in Victoria where populations in the Central Highlands and East Gippsland are in distress due to – among other reasons – fire and logging eating away at their habitat. The Greater Glider was listed as ‘vulnerable’ under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation …
