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In November, Victoria’s Supreme Court found VicForests had failed to follow the law and protect endangered gliders while logging native forests, in a case taken to court by two volunteer-run groups, Kinglake Friends of the Forest and Environment East Gippsland.
Justice Melinda Richards said the agency’s timber-harvesting operations in East Gippsland and the Central Highlands had presented a threat of “serious or irreversible harm” to the gliders. VicForests may appeal the outcome.
Environment East Gippsland spokesperson Jill Redwood likened native forest logging to whaling, saying it was an environmentally destructive practice that should be left in the past.
“The main reason VicForests finds itself in the Supreme Court year after year is because it refuses to log within the laws to protect rare wildlife and our forests’ values,” said Redwood.
Also in November, another community group, Warburton Environment, won a case against VicForests in which it was determined that the logging agency must survey for and protect a threatened plant species, the tree geebung.
The greater glider, once common across the eastern seaboard, is now endangered.Credit:Josh Bowell.
Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek recently upgraded the listing for greater gliders from vulnerable to endangered because habitat destruction from logging and land clearing for agriculture has turned the large gliding possum into a rarity.
Community groups also took the agency to the Federal Court in 2021, successfully arguing it had breached federal laws when it logged forest coupes in Victoria’s central highlands. This decision was later overturned in VicForests’ favour on appeal.
The deputy leader of the Victorian Greens, Ellen Sandell, said the financial loss should prompt the Victorian government to end native forest logging and replace it with a “forest transition authority”.
“This is yet more proof that logging our native forests is a disaster – it doesn’t just destroy precious habitat, it’s also pouring tens of millions of our taxpayer dollars down the drain,” Sandell said.
Federally, political pressure over native forest logging has increased, after Plibersek committed Australia to an international pact to protect 30 per cent of the world’s land and water at the UN’s environment summit in Montreal this month.
Senator David Pocock singled out native forest logging as a key environmental threat that must be addressed if Australia is to hold up its end of the global biodiversity agreement.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Key crossbench senators, including David Pocock, say Australia must end the union-backed native logging industry because it is a risk to the survival of endangered species such as koalas, greater gliders and Leadbeater’s possum.
In 2019, Premier Daniel Andrews announced the logging of native forests would be phased out in Victoria over the next decade, with a reduction in the current level of native timber available for logging from 2024-25.
Native forest logging in Victoria produces about 3 million tonnes of carbon emissions each year, equivalent to the pollution from 700,000 medium-sized cars or double the state’s domestic aviation sector, research shows.
A spokesperson from VicForests said the financial result reflects the costs of litigation, compensation and customer reimbursements, as well as the reduction in the book value of harvestable timber
“We commend our staff, our contractors and the entire industry for their hard work in these challenging circumstances,” said the spokesperson.
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