Keeping big old trees in the ground

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Dear Minister Dimopoulos

CC: Secretary of Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action and Chief Fire Officer

Re: Protecting significant trees on public land

Large and old trees are a fundamental part of the Victorian landscape and a healthy, functioning ecosystem.

They contain hollows that are pivotal in the life cycles of many birds, frogs, reptiles and mammals. This includes most species listed under state and Commonwealth endangered species legislation, other trees of significance can include trees of significant age, size, height or girth/diameter for their species, or a rare species in outlying populations beyond its natural range.

Large and old trees are vital habitat for countless animals, including threatened species like our state emblem the Leadbeater’s Possum, and vulnerable to extinction animals like Greater Gliders and Powerful Owls. Continued loss of these trees across public land will only further condemn hollow-dependent wildlife to the threatened species list or possible regional extinction.

The Victorian National Parks Association (VNPA) has released a report, Protecting our living legacies. It outlines how public land managers can better care for our trees on public land, particularly ones that contain tree-hollows or are large for their species or region and provide irreplaceable habitat.

The report contains a ‘log of claims’, based off decades of experience in tree care and management, including Australian Standards in Tree Management and a reassessment of poor tree risk assessments currently undertaken by the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA).

The log of claim’s 21 principles and recommendations will assist public land managers in protecting significant trees across Victoria’s public land estate and use existing tree management frameworks and standards to protect trees. It incorporates relevant thresholds and procedures from Australian Standards, arboriculture and scientific literature into a practical policy guide.

The recommendations cover logging-like operations, fire operations including prescribed burning works and fuel break management and landscape level issues.

I urge you to protect significant trees on public land in Victoria by implementing the recommendations outlined in the report. And bring forward a new era of evidence-based management of large and old trees on public land.

I believe large and old trees should be protected as complex living elements, acknowledging their role sustaining wildlife, as habitats or even entire ecosystems while providing great social and cultural value. They support native bees and other pollinators, stabilise the forest floor and circulate nutrients throughout the canopy. They clean our air and regulate our groundwater.

For significant trees that form tree hollows, it can take hundreds of years to form hollows big enough for larger animals like Powerful Owls and Greater Gliders.

The decline of large and old trees is happening across all land types and tenures; from the suburbs, to farms, state forests and national parks. The loss of large, old and hollow-bearing trees is recognised as a key threat to native forests and woodlands according to Victoria’s primary threatened species law, the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 (FFG Act).

A 2018 policy change by the then environment minister set a precedent to protect all trees on public land, including roadsides, with a diameter at breast height (DBH) 2.5 metres. The Minister stated that ‘all native trees across the state greater than 2.5 metres in diameter would also be protected, whether they stood in forests or along roadsides.’

Yet on the ground works by DEECA and Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMV) do not reflect the importance of large and old trees or their legislative duties to protect hollow bearing trees and threatened species habitat.

Hollow-bearing and significant trees are being felled and damaged during fire management operations, be they prescribed burning operations or poorly planned and executed firebreak works. This is leading to a mass loss of vital habitat trees across areas that once protected and fostered threatened species populations.

Victoria has a decreasing number of impressive old trees spread across the public land estate. Protecting these trees will bring greater ecological and economic benefits than their destruction. 
I urge you to protect significant trees on public land in Victoria by implementing the recommendations outlined in the report. 
Yours sincerely,

Big old hollow-bearing trees are the life force of our forests. They’re home to native animals, like Powerful Owls and Critically Endangered Greater Gliders.

But a bad cocktail of land-clearing, fire and lack of oversight is cutting their lives short.

When these living monuments are destroyed, native wildlife, the climate and the local web of life lose.

If Victoria’s land managers adopt our 21 recommendations, legacy trees in our public landscapes will be properly protected.

Call on the environment department to take on the Big 21 for our big trees.

Send your elected leaders a message today. You can include your own words for more impact.

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