Victoria’s central highlands are essential to protecting Melbourne’s water supply and also contributing $260 million a year to the tourism economy, a new study has found. The report from the Australian National University (ANU) used an international method recognised by the United Nations to value the ecosystem in the central highlands — an area that …
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 …
Species declines and unsustainable forestry evident under RFAs Pr. David Lindenmayer, ANU; Ann Jelinek, Nature Focus Victoria; Oisin Sweeney, National Parks Association of NSW The 20-year Regional Forest Agreements between State and Commonwealth governments are due for renewal. They aim to allow native forest harvesting while providing for conservation and future industry. RFA legislative …
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 state environment department has defended its fire management practice which led to the incineration of a colony of rare New Holland mice. In early May, Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, and Forest Five Management Victoria carried out a burn in the Providence Ponds Flora and Fauna Reserve near Stratford. The reserve is …
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 …
The East Gippsland Shire Council (EGSC) appears determined to destroy the roosting site of a colony of the threatened Grey-headed Flying Foxes. This is a major blunder of immense ignorance and bloody mindedness that will likely result in an even bigger problem for the council, possibly with a million dollar ‘fix-it’ bill and an even …
There could be a win-win solution for the current controversy over the nationally significant colony of Flying Foxes along the Mitchell River, say local environment groups. A failure if the council proceeds with habitat destruction could cost ratepayers over a million dollars going by other documented failures and the lessons learned. The second stage of …
