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 …
A South Gippsland landowner has offered to buy state forest to prevent the timber being harvested by Victorian Government-owned logging company VicForests. Jon Wood runs beef cattle on the edge of the intended harvest area at Mirboo North in eastern Victoria, and said harvesting the logs would reduce land value. VicForests has outlined plans to …
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 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, …
A farmer in Bairnsdale could face charges over the fatal poisoning of five white-bellied sea eagles found dead near Bairnsdale last month. The threatened birds were poisoned after eating corellas that had been illegally baited. Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning Program Manager, Craig Oldis says necropsy and toxicology tests on two of the …
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 …
