The Victorian Plantations Corporation did not limit their activities to the
growing and harvesting of plantations. Below are 1997-8 images taken in
the Strzelecki State Forest on VPC vested public land.
Evans Track in the Franklin catchment
Red Hill track in the Franklin catchment
As well as giant mountain ash, such as these ones, the VPC were cutting huge
blackwood trees, such as the one below on a new track off the Toora-Gunyah road.
And myrtle beech such as this one on Devils Pinch Road in the Agnes catchment.
From the air...
There are many areas where the bush has failed to regrow after clearfelling, such as this area in the Agnes catchment logged some 15 years ago. The soil has washed away and bare clay remains
In 1995, a joint agreement between the State and Federal Governments made 6 million hectares of Australian forest into temporary reserves pending the outcomes of the Regional Forest Agreements.These were known as Deferred Forest Areas. All the logging coupes pictured occur in this deferred forest area, which was supposedly exempt from timber harvesting.
An area of around 25,000 ha. in the Strzeleckis was part of this plan.
Click here to go to full size RFA Gippsland region map
The State Government, however, decided to exempt the Strzeleckis from this agreement, arguing that the area was largely plantation. This is not so. By our reckoning, no more than one quarter of the Strzelecki Deferred Forest Area is planted eucalypt - either by aerial seeding or direct planting of seedlings.
Planted areas cannot necessarily be labelled plantation.
For example, areas of public native forest which have been clearfelled must by law be regenerated in the original species. This is often done by planting seedlings. This does not make the area a plantation
On the ground the view is like this.
And this.
.............And this. 
..And this. 
And this. 
Trees have been taken from Rainforest Gullies at several sites such as this one on Stronachs Road in the Franklin catchment
.
Areas of native vegetation are being replaced with non-endemic bluegum (eucalyptus globulus) and shining gum (eucalyptus nitens), despite the State Government policy of not converting public native forest into plantation land.
