The Andrew’s government’s announcement that it will purchase the ailing ASH timber mill in the Gippsland town of Heyfield will come at a massive cost to tax payers and the environment, Friends of the Earth has said. 

Recent logging in the Acheron forests north of Warburton has severely impacted on a large population of protected greater gliders. 

Greater gliders are Australia’s largest gliding marsupial and Victoria’s latest threatened species. Last month the greater glider was officially listed as a threatened and protected species on the Victorian Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act.

But logging in greater glider habitat is continuing with no protections for this unique marsupial.

VicForests has just started logging in the ‘Floater’ coupe near Toolangi, to the north east of Melbourne in the Central Highlands.

Earlier this week, volunteer surveyors from Wildlife of the Central Highlands (WOTCH) recorded a critically-endangered Leadbeater's Possum next to the coupe. WOTCH is now calling for the environment minister Lily D’Ambrosio to intervene and put a halt to the logging.

The Andrews state government is coming up to its two year anniversary. That means they're halfway through this term of Parliament, with two years left before the next election.

Premier Andrews came to power with a promise to make Victoria a leader on climate change and the environment. They've definitely started on this journey - they're saying the right things, and have made some welcome decisions so far.

Since winning the election in 2014, the Andrews government has announced a permanent ban on unconventional gas, started protecting rivers from damage by cows, committed Victoria to net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050, removed 99 year leases from national parks, set strong targets for renewable energy, amongst other things.

But some big ticket items remain. What will happen to Hazelwood, the world's dirtiest power station? Will the Great Forest National Park finally be created? These and other questions still need answers.

Friends of the Earth’s River Country Campaign and local Friends of Nyah-Vinifera Forest group alongside Wadi Wadi Traditional Owners have collaborated and received a Threatened Species Grant from the Victorian Department of Environment, Land Water and Planning.

Volunteers have been out in the Nyah-Vinifera Regional Park getting skilled up and surveying the health of the forest flora. People were trained in plant and weed identification, quadratic surveying and cultural sensitivity in the Park. Being out in the forest, seeing it come back to life with water and learning from Traditional Owners about their land is a massive privilege.

Environmental organisation Friends of the Earth has raised concerns regarding the logging and sale of plantation land in the Fernbank region of East Gippsland.

The bluegum plantations were established between 2005 and 2009 by Macquarie Bank in conjunction with Midway Plantations. The plantations were planted largely to meet the demands of a new Bleached Pulp Facility at Maryvale.

During the process to get the Facility approved, it was claimed that it would be sourcing its fibre needs from 20,000 ha of new hardwood plantations that were to be planted between 2005 and 2019 in the Gippsland region. A “temporary” increase in access to native forests was granted in 2005, as an interim solution to the plantation supply shortfall.

After a 20 year campaign, Friends of the Earth and Friends of Gippsland Bush (FoGB) were informed on May 20th that College Creek, in Victoria's Strzelecki Ranges will soon be added to the State's Reserve system.

The College Creek handover will be the first package of land, comprising of 8,500ha, that will be gradually handed back over the next few years. The Strzelecki Ranges is one of the most depleted bioregions in Victoria, and the protection of core rainforest catchments of the region has been the major focus of FoE's plantation campaign since the mid 1990's. The pressure exerted on Hancock Victorian Plantations by FoE and FoGB since the mid 1990's has led to the protection of approximately 23,500ha of forest throughout South Gippsland.

National Parks are protected right? They are the last remaining vestiges of land in Australia that are no longer cut down, hunted in or dug up. Think again. As we speak, there are large machines pushing, breaking and cutting down Red Gum trees and trampling vegetation in the Murray Valley National Park (MVNP) in NSW, Australia. It looked bad on paper, and it looks even worse in real life. It is almost unbelievable that we are employing loggers to go back into our National Parks.

                       (Destruction on the forest floor)

The River Country Campaign was alarmed last week to discover that Greg Hunt, Australia’s ‘Minister for the Environment’, had approved a controversial logging trial in a NSW Red Gum National Park and Ramsar-listed wetland.  

In 2010 new Red Gum National Parks were declared and just six years later, Australia’s Minister for the Environment wants to bring back logging machinery into a Park, which is only just starting to recover from century long logging practices.

In Victoria, the frequency of large fires (greater than 100,000 hectares) has grown significantly over the past century.

• 19th century – 2 mega fires
• first half of 20^th Century – 4 mega fires
• 2^nd half of 20^th century – 7 mega fires
• In the first 20 years of the 21^st century – at least 8 mega fires

This is in spite of the huge advances we have made in fire fighting technology over the past 50 years.

You 'do the math'. Is there a link between climate change and fire frequency and intensity?

Science clearly says it is. (Check these stories for some examples: Global perspective in The Conversation, a senior United Nations climate change official says there is ''absolutely'' a link between climate change and bushfires, report from The Climate Council, etc).