East Gippsland forest plan attacked

East Gippsland forest plan attacked

By Bronwen Beechey

MELBOURNE — Conservation groups have slammed the Victorian government's East Gippsland Forest Management Plan, calling it a recipe for environmental disaster.

On May 26, 100 people braved wet, cold weather to join a protest, organised by the Wilderness Society (TWS), outside the headquarters of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), renamed the Department of Clear-felling and No Regrowth for the occasion.

The protest marked the final day for submissions following a two-month "community consultation" period. Environment Victoria, Friends of the Earth, TWS and East Gippsland forest activists all boycotted the consultation, labelling it a sham. They pointed out that 90% of public submissions on the Otways Forest Management Plan call for better protection of forests and less woodchipping; these were totally ignored.

Also, DCNR has suppressed information from its own scientists, who recommended that many sites of biological significance be protected.

Fenella Barry from TWS pointed out that a 1993 Victorian Auditor General's Department report "found that the native forests of East Gippsland are being cut well beyond what DCNR's own figures stipulate as a sustainable yield. This plan from the Victorian government actually proposes an increase in yield out of already badly fragmented areas of native forest. This in a state that has less than 9% of its old growth forests left and in which 20% of its animals and birds are potentially threatened by logging."

From GLW issue 189