Your voice is incredibly important. Use it to call out VicForests.
Under the guise of ‘salvage logging’ rules, VicForests is expanding logging in the proposed Wombat-Lerderderg National Park.
That’s right. State-owned loggers are cutting up the national park Premier Andrews promised to create. And they’re trucking hundreds of hectares of precious habitat for paper pulp, palettes and firewood.
Adding dozens of extra logging areas to this important forest habitat is a clear breach of last year’s commitments by the Andrews Government.
Call your Environment Minister Hon Ingrid Stitt to share your disappointment.
Parliamentary office | phone: (03) 9136 2444
Let’s call out this gross abuse of national park-designated forests.
Tips for calling
– Politely introduce yourself: your full name and the suburb you live in. If you’re local to the Macedon or Mill Park electorate, let them know.
– Tell them why you are calling. There are helpful talking points below.
– If it’s easier or makes you feel more confident, write down what you want to say on paper and practice it a few times.
– It’s impactful to add your own personal touches, stories and connections.
– A staff member might answer the phone. You can talk with them and ask for your concerns to be passed on to the minister.
– Thank the staffer or the minister for their time.
Talking points
- In 2021 your party agreed to legislate the Wombat-Lerderderg National Park. Will you push to have the Wombat Forest protected for everyone, forever, instead of being logged and degraded?
- Wombat Forest should be a park, not a pulp factory. I am calling on you to reign in the VicForests cowboys and end this so-called “Forest Recovery” program. It needs to be replaced with a program that reduces fire risk while also looking after the park values the government agreed to protect.
- Wombat Forest is a known hotspot for the state and Commonwealth listed Greater Glider, the largest gliding marsupial in the world! Further removal of remaining standing trees will negatively impact to Greater Glider habitat and movement and could result in localised extinctions of some populations.
- The Wombat Forest needs to be managed to recover from the storm event and build resilience into the forest to combat the impact climate change is already having and will have in the future on this ecosystem and the wildlife that call it home. Using 12 tonne machines to remove trees to feed the logging industry will not help but hinder this recovery and resilience.
- Using VicForests to undertake forest recovery works based on logging “standards” doesn’t capture the scope of works required to reduce fire risk and allow the forest to recover from the storm event. There is now a perverse commercial incentive to remove as many commercially viable trees as possible, rather than facilitating ecologically sound fire prevention and forest recovery.
- With 176 coupes covering over 4,000 hectares in the proposed Wombat-Lerderderg National Park, this looks like a last chance “smash and grab” by the failing logging industry under the guise of fire prevention works. Any works in these forests should be guided by ecological scientists and ecological restoration professionals.
- For over thirty years our community has protected and identified important values within this forest. We have gone through the process of having those values recognised and verified VEAC (Victorian Environmental Assessment Council). Adding dozens of extra logging areas to this important forest habitat is a clear breach of last year’s commitments by your government.
