RFAs need to be terminated

EEG has submitted comments to the farcically late 5 yearly review of RFA (26 Jan 2018). We say they must be terminated. The Regional Forest Agreements cost us $300 million dollars to pretend the forest battle had been solved by ‘balancing all values’. They have failed on almost every environmental promise, but for 20 years …

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Leaving only the ASH

The Andrews Government is torn between helping a group of workers in a small country town fighting for their jobs and caving in to a group of Melbourne investors happy for taxpayers to relieve them of their responsibilities, writes Michael Spencer. The problem for the Andrews Government is that if it caves in to pressure …

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Heyfield timber mill: Victorian Government completes purchase

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 …

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Endangered animals threatened by logging, environment groups allege

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 …

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Greater gliders: fears of ‘catastrophic’ consequences from logging in Victoria

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 …

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Malcolm Turnbull caves in to Tasmanian loggers

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, …

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