Recent logging in Snobs Creek,in the Rubicon State Forest.
“Although our foresters worked extremely diligently,we did not meet all supply targets,with the greatest impacts on supply being the loss of planned coupes due to the 2019-20 fires and injunctions granted in legal proceedings brought by opponents of sustainable native timber harvesting,” said VicForests chief executive Monique Dawson.
The $4.7 million loss has prompted criticism from environmental groups. Steve Meacher,the president of Friends of Leadbeater’s Possum Inc,said VicForests was “haemorrhaging money”.
“From an economic as well as a scientific point of view,the closing date of native forest logging in Victoria needs to be brought forward,in line with the recent announcement fromWestern Australia,” he said.
VicForests is fighting at least 10 legal challenges from community environment groups,which have brought logging to a halt in dozens of native forest coupes – areas earmarked to be logged.
The critically endangered Leadbeater’s possum.Credit:Justin McManus
In a hearing in the Victorian Supreme Court last week,a judge granted two environment groups – Kinglake Friends of the Forest and Environment East Gippsland – injunctions that halted logging in 27 areas of forest in East Gippsland and the Central Highlands until the matters could return to court.
On behalf of the two groups,barrister Jonathan Korman argued VicForests was failing to undertake adequate surveys for greater gliders and yellow-bellied gliders (both listed as vulnerable) before logging,as well as risking serious environmental damage in logging operations. VicForests will defend the matter in court when the case returns in early December.