Victoria finally ended native forest logging on January 1st, 2024. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for the Victorian community to re-imagine our relationship to forested landscapes. We must insist on a relationship of care with these incredibly diverse landscapes, not one of exploitation or neglect. This transition away from logging should also be a decolonising process that asserts the Sovereignty First Peoples.
1. These forests exist within the cultural landscapes of the unceded sovereign lands of Traditional Custodians. Government should fully and securely resource First Peoples to build Nation-based capacity to care for Country through a cultural landscapes lens. First Nations are decision makers, not stakeholders. Government must meaningfully empower First Nations groups by implementing direct management arrangements & equitable decision making frameworks, like collaborative management. Each Nation must be fully resourced & supported to conduct their own bio-cultural assessments and self-determine the transition process for their own Country.
2. Government must close all logging loopholes & permanently prohibit future extraction & exploitation, like salvage logging or industrial mining, in all native forests, regardless of tenure.
3. Government must take responsibility for logging's legacy & significantly fund the restoration of native forest (including Alpine ash & critically endangered mountain ash ecosystems, which store more carbon than anywhere else in the world). Native forests – and the diversity of species that call them home – have been severely exploited by logging, as well as impacted by bushfire. Landscapes ravaged by logging have failed to regenerate and will need long-term monitoring to ensure their survival, recovery & resilience to climate change.
4. Empower regional communities to participate in restoration. Partnerships that support Healthy Country and regenerative livelihoods for regional people should be resourced by governments, but anchored to place-based, collaborative governance arrangements led by First Peoples.
5. Protect biodiversity & habitat from climate impacts and disasters, as well as misguided bushfire prevention operations like targeted, broad-acre fuel-reduction burning that harms ecosystems & sacrifices critical hollowed habitat trees, despite scientists attributing increased bushfire risk long-term to these practices.
Our vision is a future beyond logging that fosters the collective wellbeing people & biodiversity.
Support First Peoples' plans to re-establish bio-cultural relationships across forested cultural landscapes. Empower local communities to actively participate in restoration & fund regenerative livelihoods that rely on reciprocity with the environment.
Permanently prohibit all future colonial & industrial resource extraction in native forests by closing logging loopholes & banning 'salvage logging' & industrial mining in all native forests.
Fund the the restoration of logged mountain ash & alpine ash forests
Protect the Alpine bioregion from climate threats like more frequent bushfire and snow gum dieback.
