Also last year, a Federal Court found VicForests had logged in breach of state laws, driving threatened species such as the Leadbeater’s possum, towards extinction.

In statements on its website VicForests said it had commissioned an external investigation into claims about spying. “The claims made do not reflect the culture, the values or the people of VicForests,” it said.

Another statement said the regulator had found no evidence that VicForests’ surveys of its regeneration efforts were incorrect or that regeneration did not comply with requirements.

Margaret Blakers, an environmental activist and one of the authors of the report about regeneration, said she believed the funding announcement was a response to the slew of reports on the conduct of VicForests, but she said the changes did not go far enough.

She said the state government should bring forward the closure of native forest logging to the end of 2023, in line with Western Australia’s policy.

“VicForests job is to sell logs from native forests. That is what it is required to do and that you could say that it will go to any lengths to do that. It should be wound up,” she said.

Nicola Rivers, chief executive of Environmental Justice Australia, one of the groups that led the Leadbeater’s possum case, said the changes announced by the government were unnecessary.

“While it is promising the Andrews government has recognised this is a serious issue, it is absolutely inadequate to waste time introducing new infringement options when the focus should be on using the strong environment protection tools already available in Victorian law,” she said.

“Numerous, effective legal tools already exist to enforce compliance with logging rules and protect Victoria’s precious wildlife, but they are scarcely used.

“The problem is not a lack of enforcement tools, the problem is the government’s failure to use them.”

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