We got the Strzelecki Blues worse than ever.
Page updated November 14 2006
Several years ago, the Strzelecki Working Group (Hancock Victorian Plantations included) unanimously agreed to ask the State Government to bring about the immediate reservation of the "cores and links", an area of approximately 8,000 hectares of the Strzelecki State Forest identified by Bioisis Research as high conservation forest. The big proviso we all agreed to was that Hancock Victorian Plantations, the Strzelecki State Forest leaseholders, should be adequately compensated for any timber foregone. Most of us also felt that that this compensation should be provided by the State Government in the form of money. The State Government refused to act for many years, until about a year ago when it got more involved. This was horribly late, and the years of delay had stretched HVP¹s patience and bumped up their asking price, but we all hoped for some progress.
On Friday the thirteenth October '06, Mr. Thwaites made an announcement about the cores and links. The gist of the announcement was that the ³cores and links² were going to be saved, but down in the fine print of his media release, there were hints of a few odious provisos, which were everything that we were dreading. His announcement refers to the agreement made between the State Government and HVP called the ³Heads of Agreement² which was signed on Oct 5th. Next, a legally binding document based on this will be drawn up between HVP and the State Government, and signed. The Heads of Agreement sets out the deal as it currently seems to stand. For conservation, it¹s a case of one step forward, two steps back. The one step forward is the promise to protect the 8000 ha. of the Cores and Links in the Eastern Strzelecki Ranges. In return HVP are given unprecedented free-reign over the Strzeleckis. The deal turned out very much in HVP¹s favour, and it is troubling and sad to see the State Government dwarfed before the might of the private logging corporation.
The down side of the Agreement:
1. It allows about a fifth to a quarter of the Cores and Links to be clear felled by HVP before "saving" it
2. It opens up "custodial land" (the native forest which makes up about half of their Strzelecki State Forest leasehold land) for logging, as it never was before. HVP is being given access to 460,000 cubic metres of timber from Strzelecki native forest. Before this deal, even if it wanted to log in the ³custodial lands², the need to obtain shire permits to do so would have proved a real obstacle. This agreement removes this obstacle by fast-tracking Council permits, and allows HVP into whatever custodial land they need to make up their "shortfall". So much for custodianship.
3. The plan is far from fully formed. The government isn't planning a normal reserve, but a baffling hybrid akin to a piece of covenanted private land, even though all of the cores and links is 100% public land. There is no estimate as to how long it will take to log, regenerate and then ³save² the whole of the ³cores and links², but we fear that they are planning a painful bit-by-bit approach.
4. It allows for the logging of bits of native vegetation that happen to lie within areas of plantation¹.
5.. It downgrades the Biosis recommendations for 250m buffers around Cool Temperate Forest to 60m and 100m buffers around Warm Temperate Rainforest to 60m.
6. It stipulates that the members of the Strzelecki Forest Community Group are not to campaign against any of the above, or HVP can call the deal off.
For a time, the Strzelecki Forest Community Group (which is more or less the Strzelecki Working Group minus Hancocks) stuck to our policy and sent fairly consistent messages to the State Government that the absolute minimum that we expected was a: prompt reserving of the Cores and Links, and b: the ³custodial land² was to remain off-limits to logging. The message that we were receiving was that the Government wasn¹t going to come up with enough money for all of that. As the deal was hammered out, the SFCG¹s solidarity fell apart. The poor Strzelecki Working Group and the poor Strzelecki Forest Community Group were all so disillusioned and disheartened by so many years of getting nowhere that even a cynical and flawed deal such as this was seen by some as better than nothing. A couple of SWG members have tried to talk it up a bit, hail the plan as some sort of triumph, but there hasn¹t been any cheering on the streets. We stuck to our guns and found ourselves sidelined. With the chairman and other SFCG members willing to support this deal, it no longer mattered what we thought. The government could claim that the deal was something that the community supports. We have such an archive of letters of support, ³letters to the editor², etc, and none of them indicate that any section of the community would be satisfied with the deal as it stands. Hence, by supporting the deal, elements of the SFCG have made the fatal mistake of claiming to represent the community, while failing to adhere to the stated wishes of the community.
From the bits of contact we had with environment minister¹s advisors, we brought away some modicum of faith that the Government was genuine, and keen to go try to fix the problem, but we also felt much trepidation. For one thing, we knew what HVP was like to deal with, and we were picking up signs that the State Government were not keen to come up with ³enough² money. This was inevitably going to lead to a deal where HVP was ³compensated² in other ways, and/or a further reduction or dilution of the ³cores and links² reserve idea. Now, along with the $5 million that the state will pay out to HVP, the additional compensation is basically a granting of all of HVP¹s deepest Strzelecki wishes. The most insulting slap is the proviso that HVP can log the Cores and Links before giving it back. This is closely followed by a painful back-hander allowing HVP to clear fell their ³custodial lands². It¹s a mess. There¹s other reasons why its all failed so badly: Hancocks kept changing their demands and driving hard bargains; elements within DSE have long been keen to derail any plans for additional reserves in the Strzeleckis.
At some point, about 12 months ago, HVP began to argue that any buyback would also have to address their timber "shortfall" that resulted from saving any areas in the Strzeleckis from logging. They didn't just want money as compensation any more, they wanted an additional "equivalent" volume of wood to be found for them, from places additional to where they¹re already allowed to log. They even held a forum on the issue where several good suggestions were put forward, but ignored. Somewhere in the negotiations, DSE, the Government and HVP seemed to have agreed that any timber volume ³forfeited² by HVP due the ³saving² of the Cores and Links would have to be made up from forests in the Strzeleckis. The option of actually CUTTING LESS WOOD was never taken seriously by either party. HVP already have the right to log all the plantations as well as native forest regrowth and reforestation (often mistakenly referred to as plantation). Beyond that, the only additional areas in the Strzeleckis where HVP can make up their ³shortfall² are the "custodial" lands, the native forest which makes up about half of their Strzelecki State Forest leasehold land, which HVP have often declared was safe from logging, as they were a plantation company, not a native forest logging company. Up until now Hancock Victorian Plantations have traded on their plantation branding, always going on about what good ³custodians² they were. But the signing of the ³Heads of Agreement² officially makes HVP a native forest logging company. Forget any idea that HVP is solely a plantation company from here on. The upshot is that in addition to being allowed to log within the Cores and Links, and continue to frantically harvest from their hardwood estate outside of the Cores and Links, HVP have also been granted access to cut an additional 460,000 cubic metres of timber from Strzelecki native forest.
Once more we hark back to the most glaringly cynical part of it all, the deal to let HVP clear fell in the Cores and Links before it is "saved". Didn¹t this dreadful and gloomy piece of mal-practice die out decades ago? Are things still this dire? Media releases state that 1500 ha of the ³cores and links² will be clear felled. This may take place over many years, even decades. The areas to be logged are being cunningly described as plantation, perhaps putting the false idea forward that these areas are somehow inferior, and that logging it might even be beneficial. This is just spin. In fact these areas are native forest regrowth, predominantly Mountain Ash. There is nothing exotic or plantation-like about them. They are either regrowth after clear felling carried out around 20 - 30 years ago, or part of the Strzelecki Reforestation Scheme. They are part of the depleted Wet Forests that we are trying to protect.
Needless to say, we did not support the deal. We stuck with the SFCG policy that opposed logging in the Cores and Links and in the custodial land, making us dissenters. The decision by many individuals in the group to diverge from their own policies represents a betrayal of what the community actually wants. We are dilligent archivists and have a swag of letters from all sorts of groups and individuals calling for a "Cores and Links" National Park at the very least, many asking for a great deal more and, as we have already said, not a single one suggests that any section of the community would be anything other than insulted by the deal as it stands.
The ³Heads of Agreement² stipulates that the Strzelecki Forest Community Group are to: refrain from campaigning against the Company Group¹s once only harvesting activities in the Custodial Land and plantation areas within the Harvest Area¹ The community, for decades, has been fighting and hoping for a decent amount of protection in the Strzelecki forest, and the Strzeleckis is still not even close to the State Government¹s minimum reserve targets. A great deal of the ³Heads of Agreement² is at odds with the community¹s wishes. We have left the SFCG because we choose not to be part of a group that supports the agreement.
- Kim Devenish and Julie Constable
P.S. A Proposal for a 30,000 ha. National Park in the Strzelecki State Forest¹ seeks a further 25,000 ha. of reserves in the Strzelecki State Forest, and has huge public support including: Australian Plants, the South Gippsland Conservation Society, the Mt. Best Concerned Residents Association, the Latrobe Valley Field Naturalists, Environment Victoria, the Strzelecki Hills Branch ALP, Wonthaggi/Bass Branch ALP, Greening Australia, Friends of the Gippsland Bush; Friends of Morwell National Park; Friends of Tarra-Bulga National Park, Greens Party, Prom Coast Tourism, Mt. Eliza Association for Environmental Care, the Foster Planning for Real¹ project, Senator Bob Brown, Professor David Bellamy and the Victorian National Parks Association. 7,000 people signed a petition in support of the national park in a few months in 1998. The petition was tabled in the Victorian Parliament. The Gippsland RFA Social Assessment¹ acknowledged the community¹s vision for a major national park in the Strzeleckis and the Board of the West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority noted the community¹s acceptance of the park proposal. The Nature Conservation Review 2001 recommended a major new park for the Strzelecki Ranges of around 45,000 ha.
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Previous update: June 2004
The ALPs pre-election policy document, Our Natural Assets: Valuing Victorias natural environment (1999) states: "The Kennett Government has failed to protect remaining native vegetation in the Strzelecki Ranges.It privatised over 20,000 ha.of native vegetation when it sold the Victorian Plantations Corporation to private interests, and failed to enforce the Code of Forest Practice to protect rainforests, streamside vegetation and other native vegetation from logging. . Labor will:
-Ensure full protection of all conservation areas in the Strzelecki Ranges
Negotiate with private landowners to ensure protection of all significant areas of native forest and strictly enforce the code of forest practice
-Refer
the Strzelecki Ranges to the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council to
examine future opportunities for protection of native forests in the
region."
-Severely depleted bioregion
-Severely under reserved
-Public forest leased to a plantation corporation.
-No environmental assessment before privatisation
-Native forest misclassified as plantation
-Logging rates higher than ever
-Very young Mountain Ash forest cut and replaced with non-endemic
plantation species
-Exempt
from many public processes
-Flora
and fauna threatened
-Rainforest
threatened by Myrtle wilt
South
Gippsland Victoria. Australia
Black
outline: Strzelecki Bioregion ( 340,000 ha.)
Green: most of the remaining Native vegetation ( around
65,000 ha)
The Great Forest of Gippsland once covered the entire Strzelecki
Ranges. Much of the Eastern and
nearly all of the Western Strzeleckis was privatised and converted to
agricultural land between the 1850s and the 1920s, along with the bulk of the
surrounding foothills and flats.
The destruction of this giant forest was one of the most regrettable and
painful chapters in Australia's history.
But not all was lost. Luckily, the upper parts of the Eastern Strzeleckis were just
too inaccessible, too steep, too hostile, and too difficult to clear and
remained Crown Land. Since the
1930s a further 28,000 ha. was gradually repurchased by the State, bringing the
extent of public land in these ranges to 60,000 ha. 9,000 ha. of the Strzelecki State Forest was land briefly
leased out to hopeful farmers in the 1890s. This land reverted back to the Crown after proving to be
unsuitable for farming and was abandoned, often before any clearing took
place. A 1927 royal Commission
reported that abandoned 'farmland' in the Strzeleckis had already returned to
heavy forest cover. The remaining
26,000 ha. has always been Crown Land.
So, less than half the Strzelecki State Forest is repurchased land.
By the end of the 1940s a reforestation scheme to 'restore beauty
and productivity' to areas which had been damaged slowly got underway. In part, it served to allow and
assist the bush to reclaim failed farm clearings. Its main emphasis, however, was to replace mixed forest and
farmland with a great expanse of pine plantations. This led to a prolonged war with the natural environment by
way of baiting, spraying, ringbarking and bulldozing. Wallabies and wattles were branded as pests.
Now, most of the remnant Strzelecki Wet, Damp and Cool-temperate
Forest lies in the upper reaches of the Eastern Strzelecki Ranges, with a few
significant outlying sites.The 59,000 ha. of public land in the Strzeleckis is
made up of 5000 Ha of reserves, and about 54,000 ha. of State Forest. This
State Forest contains around 13,000 ha. of pine plantations around its edges.
The Forest
The
Strzelecki uplands form the beginnings for all of South Gippslands rivers and
creeks, feeding Gippslands major inlets and lakes.
It is steep,wet country and the area is one of Victoria's most
significant sites for cool temperate rainforest and renowned for its huge
Mountain Ash.The forest is home to a genetically distinctive endemic koala
population of national conservation significance and endangered species
including the Spot-tailed Quoll, Powerful Owl, Broad-toothed Rat, Barking Owl,
Sooty Owl, Bent-wing Bat and the Australian Grayling. Superb Lyrebirds, loved
for their beautiful song and dance gave the name Land of the Lyrebird to the
South Gippsland area; their habitat is now restricted to the remnant forest.
Reserves, including the Tarra-Bulga National Park are much admired but are too
small. The accounts written by the early settlers describe the variety and the
sheer abundance of the wildlife- Koalas, Quolls, Gliders, Platypus, Wombats,
Bandicoots, Potoroos. Echidnas were observed trundling along in long echidna
trains. Gum leaves, Wattle, Ferny gullies, Blackwood, Beech and giant Ash
combined into the archetypal Southern forest. Mosses, lichens, fungi and ferns
covered tree trunks and fallen logs. Everything grew to an astounding size.
Shrubs grew as trees. Trees grew gargantuan.
The extent and abundance has been diminished. The native forest
community is confined to a fifth of its former extent, and that fifth has not
received the level of protection it needs to retain and boost biodiversity, habitat values and catchment health. Given protection, the bush will bounce back, but at
present, it is being kept in a state of arrested development by clearfelling.
The
presence of the Maryvale paper mill to the north of the Ranges has added
pressure on the Strzelecki forest. For more than 5 decades APMs (became Amcor)
Maryvale paper mill has sourced Mountain Ash from the Strzelecki public forest.
The company also became the major holder of freehold forest and plantations in
the Strzeleckis. Since the 60s Amcor also leased 8600 ha. of the Strzelecki
State Forest.
In
1993 the Kennett Government created the Victorian Plantations Corporation (VPC)
and put most of the Strzelecki State Forest (40,000 ha.) under its management
Strzelecki
residents gathered on the steps of parliament House on
Tuesday, 28th April, 1998, to express their grievances and disgust with the
Government and called for a large National Park
in the Strzeleckis.
The following night, the Bill was passed through the Lower House, but not without considerable debate regarding public access, lack of maps for the public to scrutinize. Many locals, including the South Gippsland Conservation Society have urged that a moratorium on hardwood logging in the Strzeleckis be put in place until grievances are resolved.
In
1998, the Kennett Government sold the VPC to Hancock Victorian Plantations
(HVP), the Victorian branch of US based timber company, Hancock Timber Resource
Group. The land that the VPC managed was transferred to HVP in the form of
leaseholds. No environmental impact study was undertaken beforehand.
In
2002, all of Amcors freehold and leasehold plantations and native forest in
Gippsland was purchased by HVP.
Leased Strz. State Forest:
Ex- VPC State Softwood plantations13166
ha.
Ex- VPC native forestmis-labelled as
plantation6500 ha.
Ex ?VPCunavailable native forest19674 ha.
Ex - Amcor native forest and
plantation4500 ha. (approx.)
Ex -Amcor unavailable Native forest4000
ha. (approx.)
Freehold:
Ex-Amcor Softwood plantations11934 ha.
Ex-Amcoravailable native forest2500 ha
(approx.)
Ex-Amcor Native forest12000 ha. (approx.)
Total 73700 ha.
The Rest Of The Forest in the Strzeleckis
Reserves (Tarra-Bulga
& Morwell Nat. Parks, Mt. Worth State Park & Gunyah Rainforest Res) : 5000 ha.
Freehold Native Forest other than HVPs10,000 ha. approx
In the 80s the Land Conservation Council undertook a major
assessment of the place and recommended that these areas remain in public
tenure and subject to the Forests Act.It is now quasi-private and exempt from
the Forests Act. This forest which locals hold dear is being treated as if it
were private land and logging has intensified in these important headwaters,
fragmenting habitat, introducing exotic species through the heart of the
remnant forest and threatening biodiversity, waterways, rainforest and the
health of the forest.
Classifying these areas as plantation means forest can be cut
frequently and replaced with any plantation species. As a result, young
Mountain Ash forest is being cut and replaced with non-endemic Shining Gum and
Blue Gum.
HVP are currently logging eucalypt at the rate of 450 ha / year from
leased Strzelecki State Forest). Recently, HVP announced their intention to
increase this forest destruction to 700 ha / year.
Softwood in the Strzeleckis is being cut at a rate of around 2000
ha. per year.
Reports
and studies have stressed the inadequacy of the Strzeleckis reserve system. The
CAR reserve criteria suggests reserves should be catchment based, have a low
boundary-area ratio and be linked across the landscape. These criteria have been
considered in the National Park and the Cores and Links proposals.
Approximately
2% of public land in Victoria has been converted to plantation, yet in the
Strzeleckis approximately 35% of public land has been converted to
plantation. In order to rectify
this gross imbalance, the remnant forest in the Strzeleckis needs formal
reserve protection.
In
1998, South Gippslanders worked out a way to enlarge the reserve system to
30,000 ha. bringing the proportion of land in reserve to a much healthier 10%
of total bioregion, bringing existing reserves (5000 ha.) together with the
non-leased areas of State Forest (5000 ha.) and almost half of the leased public
land (20,000 ha.).The national park would link the forest from Turtons Creek in
the west to beyond Tarra-Bulga Park in the east, as well as including outlying
but significant areas.The Proposal
struck a strong note in the Gippsland community with 7000 people signing a
petition in support of it in no time at all.Support was remarkably broad and
enthusiastic, and opposition was virtually non-existent. The local community
was aware of lack of conservation in the Strzeleckis.
This
was commissioned by the Victorian National Parks Assoc. to identify gaps within
Victorias reserve system. The report stressed that the wetter forests of the
Strzelecki Ranges Bioregion stand out as a forested bioregion requiring special
attention due to the high level of threatened Ecological Vegetation Classes and
very poor reservation.It recommended a major new park system for the Strzelecki
Ranges to ensure protection of the remaining biodiversity of the wet and damp
eucalypt forests and cool temperate rainforests of the region.
The
Strzelecki Working Group (SWG)formed by the South Gippsland Shire and with
conservation, HVP & Shire representatives, commissioned the Strzelecki
Ranges Biodiversity Study, which
identified five high biodiversity Core Areas and habitat links joining the
Gunyah Rainforest reserve to Tarra Bulga NP and College Creek.This proposal
will protect nationally significant rainforest sites, secure habitat for
endangered species and protect the headwaters of the streams and rivers in the
Eastern Strzeleckis and add some 8000 ha. to the reserve system. This is an
urgent priority.
HVP
agree to it as long as they are compensated for the foregone harvesting
rights.The company agreed to a temporary moratorium on logging in the Cores and
Links but time is running out.
A
second proposal endorsed by the Strzelecki Working Group is to have the5,000
ha. of non-leased State Forest added to the reserve system.
Initially,
the Strzelecki State Forest was part of the RFA process and part of the
Deferred Forest Area which was to protect it from logging until the RFA was
completed.Midway through the process the State Government privatised the bulk
of the forest and by doing so excluded it from the RFA process and
consideration for the CAR reserve system, which was supposed to apply to all
public forest.The local community was appalled. The Gippsland RFA Consultation
Paper stated: A range of concerns have been raised by communities in South
Gippsland about the management of native forest and plantations in the
Strzeleckis.These relate to the sale of the plantations, the appropriateness of
transfer of public native forest management to private companies and the
delineation of the extent of plantations in maps published in the CRA for the
Gippsland RFA.
2. The Victorian Environmental Assessment Council (VEAC)
The
Gippsland RFA Consultation Paper stated: The Victorian Government has
indicated its intention to ensure full protection of all conservation areas in
the Strzelecki Ranges and to refer the issues raised about the Strzelecki
Ranges to the proposed Environmental Assessment Council to examine future
opportunities for protection of native forests in the region.These processes
will follow completion of the Gippsland RFA.
The Strzelecki issues have not been referred to the VEAC, as
its terms of reference have been limited to exclude leased public land.But not
even the non-leased State Forest has been referred to the VEAC and the promise
to create another process to examine the Strzeleckis has not been kept.
3. Sustainable Yield Review
Society
is grappling with the idea of sustainability and the best way to apply
principles of sustainability to all our resource use. The State commissioned
the Sustainable Yield Review to look into harvesting rates in Victorias State
Forests. It found that in many regions logging was unsustainable and in some
regions, including West Gippsland, logging rates will need to be halved.
Because it is leased, the Strzelecki State Forest was exempted from this Review.
4. Forest Management Plans (FMPs)
The
Victorian Government legislated to make FMPs a requirementfor all state
forests.Public participation is invited in the development of these plans.FMPs
are not compulsory for the leased state forest in the Strzeleckis.
5. Code of Forest Practices (COFP)
As
the land they lease is treated as if private land, the company operate under
the section of the COFP which applies to private land which is less stringent
than the Code for Public land. As the native vegetation they cut is
mis-classified as plantation, the code is less stringent still.
A
major fear held by locals was that a private plantation corporation would not
be the appropriate organization to manage our remnant State Forest. We have now
had the time to observe if our fears have come true. They have.
After
decades of rough treatment at the hands of the Forestry Commission,and then the
VPC, the State Forest was leased off before any environmental assessment had
been made, without an adequate reserve system, before any management plans had
been made, and in the face of great community opposition. Ash Reforestation and
regrowth had its native forest status revoked and was wrongly classified and
sold as plantation. The rate of
clearfelling has increased. The
focus has switched from 100 year rotation rates (the time allowed between
harvestings) to 20-30 year rotation rates. The future effects of 3 or more clearfellings per century is
unknown. Areas of native forest
restoration are being logged and replaced with non-local plantation
species. Responsibility for
policing logging was shifted to Shires. HVP bought into one great big
unresolved problem. However, the VPC Act exempts HVPs leaseholds from the Forests
Act and a raft of other Acts giving it a great deal of freedom to operate with
impunity regardless of these unresolved problems.
Sohow
has this corporation responded to these challenges?Does it develop a strategy
most advantageous to-
A.
The Environment
B.
The Community
C.
Shareholders
Answer:
C
HVP have made it clear that the corporations main objective is to
maximise benefits to shareholders.
HVP have chosen to manage the controversial
7,000 ha. of Mountain Ash as plantation, without any concessions to historical
and biological evidence.HVP chooses to perpetuate the myth created at the time
of sale,by not acknowledging the Native Forest status of these areas.They are
taking full advantage of their right to strip these areas at an unprecedented
rate and replant in non-native plantation species. This kind of intensive
cropping is not what State Forests are for.Locals are deeply disturbed at the
loss of this young Mountain Ash forest, forest fragmentation, threats to rainforest
and reduction in forest biodiversity.All native forest is at the least
regionally significant in this depleted bioregion and should not be treated in
this manner.
In addition to identifying the high conservation value
cores and links on leased State Forest, The Strzelecki Ranges Biodiversity
Study made
recommendations for appropriate logging prescriptions which would serve to halt
the ongoing degradation of the remaining biodiversity:
2.Clear delineation of native vegetation on the ground to
minimise disturbance from harvesting activities.
3.250 metre buffer no go zones around all Cool Temperate
Rainforest Isolates
4.100 metre buffer no go zones around all Strzeleckis Warm
Temperate Rainforest Isolates
5.Minimum buffers of 30 m. from centre of waterways,
including the incorporation of a strip of the closest trees, which may widen
some buffer zones beyond the 30 m. minimum level.
6.Drainage lines to have20 m. buffer strips, retaining trees.
7.A minimum buffer of 2000 m.around the Spot-tailed Quoll
record
8.No harvesting onslopes over 25 degrees
9.The extension of gully strips to ridge lines and widening
them to retain eucalypts
10. The planting of a mix of indigenous tree species,
especially for koalas in large areas that have recently been harvested.
11.The planting of Mountain ash should be encouraged for any
replanting.Hardwood areas should not be replaced by pine trees or any other
non-indigenous species.
12. Tracks, etc need to avoid crossing areas of retained
vegetation
13.If necessary, only minimal amounts of herbicide should be
used in any coupe preparation works and spray drift must be avoided.Herbicides
should be relatively non-residual.
The Myrtle-Beech that dominates much of the Strzelecki
rainforest is being killed by a fungal pathogen. The condition is known as
Myrtle Wilt and is now widespread in the region and spread by wind. Exposed
rainforest on the edge of logging coupes is particularly affected, and Myrtle
trees damaged by nearby logging are extra vulnerable. Buffers (no-logging
zones) of 250 metres around all rainforest isolates were recommended in the SR
Biodiversity study as a precautionary measure to allow the rainforest to
expand; restrict spread of Myrtle Wilt, increase forest diversity as forests
mature; and allow populations of rare and threatened species to stabilise or
expand.
It needs more protection. HVP remind us that it could be worse.The legislation under which they operate permits activities that even they dare not exploit, such as the right to:
-cut any wood, not just pseudo-plantation
-bar public access to leased public land
-convert
2000 ha. of NF into plantation.
This highlights the insecure status of the Strzelecki forest.
Companies may change and commitments falter.It demonstrates again, why
Government intervention is necessary to reverse the horrors of this
privatisation and protect the biodiversity and heritage of the Strzelecki State
Forest.
1. As a matter of urgency, the Core and Link areas must be formally protected. As
part of the Strzelecki Working Group, HVP has supported the cores and links
reserve proposal as long as they are compensated.
Boundaries have been delineated, an agreement has been reached
between Shires, Authorities, Industry and Community. A scientific report has
been submitted. Public support has been well demonstrated. All this represents
nine-tenths of a difficult process provided to the State Government on a
platter, free of charge. The only missing element is the money which the State
Government provide to compensate HVP so that this land can be taken back and
made into a reserve. The Government has known all this since January 2002 and
still have not given it any budget or priority. It is ridiculous that the State
Government hasnt jumped to take advantage of this perfect opportunity.
Public forest leases acquired by Hancocks from Amcor should also
be reviewed.
As long as their forestry practices are acceptable, the public should not have a problem with HVP owning 76000 ha. of freehold land across Gippsland or leasing 108000 ha. of public pine plantations across the State. However, HVPs leasehold over 20,000 ha. of native forest and 7,000 ha. of native forest mis-classified as plantation will remain a social problem until rectified.
Some
Native Forest is within pine plantations (possibly up to 5000 ha. in the
Strzeleckis) and for reasons of practicality should continue under HVP
management
"This
must be the place for a new National Park"
said David Bellamy in December 1998 when he visited the Strzeleckis.
The
Save our Strzeleckis Forest Coalition held a demonstration in front of the
Victorian Parliament on Wednesday August 27 2003 to remind the State Government
of its promises about the Strzelecki forest and the ongoing crisis. Senator Bob
Brown addressed the 300 strong rally.
Write to Minister John Thwaites and Premier Bracks about the crisis in the Strzeleckis. For their contact details click here