Member for Bendigo: Support the wonders of the Wellsford

EMAIL YOUR MINISTER

The more people the minister hears from, the more weight the call to support greater protection will have. 

Sending an email from your personal email address shows the minister how important the issue is to the people who she directly represents.

Please copy and paste any or all of the below points for your email, or draft your own.

– The more personal the email, the better.
– Make sure you add your full name and the suburb you live in.
– Please BCC in [email protected] so we can gauge how many people are willing to stand up for their special places!

To: [email protected]

BCC: [email protected]

• As a resident of Bendigo, I call on to ensure VEAC’s final recommendations are supported by government, and moves are made to swiftly create and implement the additions to the Greater Bendigo National Park (3152 hectares) and Bendigo Regional Park (3949 hectares).
• Not only is our Wellsford Forest home to 32 rare or threatened species, including species like the hollow-dependent threatened Brush-tailed Phascogale and Barking Owl, but also a bird mecca with 165 bird species found. More than half of the 24 species that constitute the threatened Victorian temperate woodland bird community have been recorded in the Wellsford forest in recent years, previously common but now declining in Victoria due to habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation.
• New parks would also protect one of the largest and best condition Box-Ironbark forests in Victoria – right here on our doorstep.
• Bendigo City Council recognises the strong value bushwalking contributes to the local residents of our area, especially in areas with high conservation significance.
• Without support in new parks, around 99 areas are set to be logged in the central west, with 6 areas in the proposed Bendigo Regional Park – many around community sits such as the Beeripmo Walk at Mount Cole.
• I support Joint or Co-management of parks by Traditional Owners, if these arrangements are developed into new central west parks.
• Victoria’s parks estate contributes $2.1 billion annually to the economy through park tourism and supports 20,000 jobs.
• New parks would create new opportunities for employment into regional areas.
• As the Victorian community continues to grow, we need more natural areas for respite and recreation, and these new parks easily accessible to the west of the state are greatly needed, particularly for the western and northern suburbs of Melbourne.
• The new park recommendations for the Wellsford, Mount Cole and Pyrenees Ranges, and the Wombat allow for most recreational activities, in addition to the 19,000 hectares of regional park allowing for almost all forms of recreation, including dog walking, fossicking and prospecting.
• In the context of the bushfires, making an area a national park makes no difference to fire management, where Forest Fire Victoria, an arm of the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP), controls fire management on public land, including in both national parks, and state forest.
• This is a potentially momentous occasion for your government if supported, and would signify the largest creation of new national parks in over a decade.
• Protecting Victoria’s remaining unburnt forests are increasingly critical for wildlife, water, climate, community wellbeing and tourism.
• I call on you to support new national parks for our Wellsford, and more broadly for the central west.