Thursday 2nd August 2012

Today, in a curious paradox, the Department of Sustainability and Environment is being taken to court for not adhering to its own rainforest protection laws, while next week DSE will be in court prosecuting VicForests for criminally logging rainforests.

The environment group which successfully sued VicForests in 2010 for planning to unlawfully destroy endangered wildlife habitat, has today served court documents on DSE*.

Monday 29th April 2012
The government’s announcement that it will spend $1.8M to survey for endangered wildlife in Eastern Victoria is like throwing a teaspoon of sugar into a cauldron of bitter swill.

Environment East Gippsland says that this shines the spotlight on the environmental hypocrisy of the Baillieu government.

10th Jan 2012

The plan to reintroduce beef cattle into the Alpine National Park as a scientific trial has been shown by local environment groups to be a poorly masked political move.

The Gippsland Environment Group applied for documents under the Freedom of Information Act. When these were finally obtained they showed that Parks Victoria warned the government that past scientific research as well as economic and social evidence did not support alpine grazing.

20.1.2012

Environment East Gippsland had a win today as the Supreme Court decided that its rainforest logging case can go to trial after Easter, with VicForests not able to log the site in the meantime.

"VicForests was about to log illegally in a protected National Rainforest Site of Significance. We started this Court proceeding to stop them, so it was a big win for us today," said Liz Ingham of Environment East Gippsland.

Thursday 30th June 2011

VicForests has again been given aid of almost $1.3 million to clean up degraded clearfelled public forests that should have been rehabilitated and paid for by VicForests years ago.

“What other business has made a loss every year yet is rewarded by millions of dollars of tax payers money to keep going?” asked Jill Redwood of Environment East Gippsland.

Monday 13th June 2011
The recent exposé of the export of high quality whole logs to China has shown another of the many underhanded and hypocritical operations that VicForests manages. Environment East Gippsland has accused VicForests of either colluding with this illegal trade or being hopelessly incompetent as the state government’s corporate forest managers.

The United Nation’s launch of the International Year of Forests on Feb 2nd, will help highlight the plight the world’s forests, including Australia’s.

“The clearing and logging of Australia’s native forests continues despite the urgent need to protect all of the world’s forests to avoid dangerous climate change” said Jill Redwood, spokesperson for the Australian Forests and Climate Alliance.

On 19th October, an historic Tasmanian forest agreement showed the way that eastern Victoria’s long-running logging conflict can be solved.

One of the country’s most battle-worn states has seen the logging industry, Gunns and conservation groups agree to settle the conflict in a way that keeps everyone happy.

Friday 1st October 2010
For at least the third time, the Government today announced the new additions to the reserve system in East Gippsland. The ALP’s 2006 election promise was to protect ‘the last significant stands of old growth planned for logging’.

MEDIA RELEASE Friday – 10th Sept 2010

The momentous announcement by Tasmania’s logging giant Gunns, to move out of all native forests should have a major impact on Victoria’s and Gippsland’s logging future.