Premier: Please Keep Your Promise—Protect Victoria’s Old Growth Forests

In a positive move for Victoria, the Andrews Government has signalled in very clear terms that native forest logging cannot continue. But there’s another decade of logging proposed in the meantime.

As part of a raft of announcements made in early November 2019, the government promised immediate protection for 90,000 hectares of old growth forest, and an immediate ban on logging in old growth forest. These two things can’t come soon enough.

However, since the announcements, there’s been a serious lack of detail about how government will implement these important commitments.

Will you write to the ...

In a positive move for Victoria, the Andrews Government has signalled in very clear terms that native forest logging cannot continue. But there’s another decade of logging proposed in the meantime.

As part of a raft of announcements made in early November 2019, the government promised immediate protection for 90,000 hectares of old growth forest, and an immediate ban on logging in old growth forest. These two things can’t come soon enough.

However, since the announcements, there’s been a serious lack of detail about how government will implement these important commitments.

Will you write to the Victorian Premier and other key Victorian MPs to request they properly and fully honour their promises? Show that when it comes to protecting old growth forests, you expect them to do exactly that.

Image: East Gippsland | Judith Deland

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Write to Premier Andrews

The Victorian Premier promised to protect old growth forests. Now we need the details.

Tell the Premier you expect him to keep his promises. Write to him today.

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To Premier Andrews, Treasurer Pallas, and Environment Minister D’Ambrosio,

Overall, it’s positive that your government now recognises that native forest logging is unsustainable. While I welcome the important steps forward that you recently announced, I’m writing because I’m extremely concerned about fulfilment of commitments made around old growth forest, specifically the promises made to: 
- immediately ban logging of old growth, and 
- immediately protect 90,000 hectares of old growth forest.

Whilst these commitments were clearly stated on the day of the announcements, it’s unclear how these important commitments will be implemented by your government. It is problematic that there are hundreds of current VicForests logging coupes that contain Mapped Modelled Old Growth forest, including several that are earmarked for logging in the coming months. In fact, logging in old growth forest commenced just two weeks after you announced that there would be an immediate ban on logging in old growth forests! It’s obvious that your logging agency, VicForests, cannot be trusted to correctly identify old growth forest and implement a ban on logging in old growth forests.

Until old growth forests are formally protected, it is imperative that—in line with your promise—no logging occurs in 90,000 hectares of the total Mapped Modelled Old Growth, and that where logging coupes are scheduled outside of that area, a strong and effective field verification tool is applied, and not solely by VicForests, to ensure there is a total ban on old growth logging.

The following steps are urgently required:
- Victorian Government confirmation that a minimum of 90,000 hectares of Mapped Modelled Old Growth forest is immediately unavailable for logging, and protected from logging with no coupes scheduled in that area, consistent with the map produced by DELWP depicting the areas available for logging until 2030. 
- In the near future put in place a process to formally protect that forest. 
- Outside the 90,0000 hectares (and only outside this area), apply an improved field verification tool to ensure there is a ban on logging of old growth forests, and do not leave it to your logging agency, VicForests, to decide what is and isn’t old growth.
- Ensure any old growth field verification tool is designed to properly identify old growth forests, and is used only in areas outside of the Mapped Modelled Old Growth. This would assist in meeting the Victorian government's commitment that all old growth forest is protected from logging.

I look forward to the Victorian government’s public clarification of suitable detail behind your old growth promises, confirmation that the commitments will be properly implemented fully and immediately, and, should any logging commence in old growth forests, seeing that it is immediately halted.

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