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The largest will bring together the Lerderderg State Park and the Wombat State Forest to create a new park covering more than 44,000 hectares between Daylesford and Bacchus Marsh. But 10 months on, there has been no move to legislate and officially create the national parks.
Ellen Sandell, the deputy leader of the Victorian Greens, said the community was rightly concerned, saying if the government was serious about tackling Victoria’s dwindling biodiversity it would rapidly create the parks and protect them.
“How can they promise new national parks to protect rare and threatened species, and then just go ahead and bulldoze and log these exact same areas?” Sandell said.
Residents are concerned about salvage logging at Babbington Hill, east of Daylesford.
Between one-quarter and one-third of all of Victoria’s terrestrial plants, birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals, along with many invertebrates and ecological communities, are considered to be at threat of extinction.
A hard-hitting review of Victoria’s Environment Department from Auditor-General Andrew Greaves last year found the state is unable to demonstrate it is halting a further decline in threatened species.
VicForests recorded a $4.7 million loss in the most recent financial year, attributing it to an unprecedented number of court challenges from community environment groups and the destruction of timber in the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20.
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A VicForests spokesperson said the work was part of a partnership with traditional landowners, the Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation, to restore Country in the Wombat State Forest and surrounding areas and restore undergrowth to its natural ecology.
“The work undertaken in the Wombat State Forest is in direct response to removing debris and treating hazardous trees resulting from last year’s storm events,” they said.
“No trees are being removed unless they present a hazard or for operational necessity. No clear-felling is occurring in these operations.”
A Victorian government spokesperson said the legislating of the national parks was being done in stages, and boundaries were presently being established through the Surveyor-General.
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