Nine hundred giant native trees felled in VicRoads planning blunder

A planning blunder has led to the destruction of almost 900 towering old native trees after VicRoads severely underestimated the environmental impact of a highway project it is managing. Road safety is our utmost priority and roadside trees can be a hazard in run off road accidents.  VicRoads chief executive John Merritt The Western Highway is being …

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VicForests extends moratorium on logging in East Gippsland owl habitat

State-owned timber company VicForests has agreed to extend its moratorium on logging in certain areas of East Gippsland. An environment group is suing the timber company and the Victorian Government, over the logging of old-growth forest that is home to endangered owls. After further legal wrangling, VicForests has agreed to halt any logging of the …

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Paul Stamets – How Mushrooms Can Save Bees & Our Food Supply

In this 6th Age of Extinctions, the biosphere’s life-support systems that have allowed humans to ascend are collapsing. Visionary mycological researcher/inventor Paul Stamets illuminates how fungi, particularly mushrooms, offer uniquely powerful, practical solutions we can implement now to boost the biosphere’s immune system and equip us with benign breakthrough mycotechnologies to accelerate the transition to …

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Certification for WA logging agency a grave error

The Australian Conservation Foundation has called for the international Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) to withdraw environmental certification awarded to Western Australia’s state logging agency and launch an investigation into how it was issued. The environmental tick of approval was granted by UK auditing firm Soil Association despite evidence from environmental stakeholders that WA’s Forest Products …

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FSC undermined by backing logging of 600-year-old trees

The standards of the world’s leading timber certifying body, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), are being questioned after one of its British auditors gave an environmental tick of approval to log forests containing 600-year-old trees in Western Australia. The WA Government’s logging agency, the Forest Products Commission (FPC), has secured FSC certification from Soil Association …

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VicForests backs out of 81 planned logging areas

  VicForests has agreed not to log 81 of its planned logging areas as part of our court case for the owls – at least until mid December. These stands of forest have been identified as areas known to contain, or are adjacent to areas that contain threatened species of owls. After last summer’s fires …

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Room for Improvement

VicForests has a snowball’s hope in hell of gaining the green tick of approval from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an international wood certification body. It had a preliminary audit carried out on its logging management and it failed dismally. This didn’t stop it from claiming in a media release that the auditors recognised the …

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Tree Hugging Scientifically Proven to Improve Your Health

“safe, green spaces may be as effective as prescription drugs in treating some forms of mental illnesses”. In a recently published book, Blinded by Science, (www.blindedbyscience.co.uk) the author Matthew Silverstone, proves scientifically that trees improve many health issues such as; mental illnesses, ADHD, concentration levels, reaction times, depression and the ability to alleviate headaches. Countless …

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Brown Mt giant felled by fire contractors

What’s this called Ryan Smith? A bulldozer driver paid to carry out restoration work (at least $200 an hour we hear) goes 40m inside Nat Park boundary @ Brown Mountain – fells old growth tree opposite the EEG “Valley of the Giants” walk track. Can this be regarded as ‘fire safety’? Or could it be …

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