Logging of old growth forests at Granite Mountain in East Gippsland has been successfully halted into the third day. The camp has been visited by logging contractors and VicForests representatives, but government authorities are yet to arrive on site.

A brave conservationist remains suspended 20 meters above the ground on a platform in a tree preventing access and logging in the area. They are determined to continue their efforts to save these last remaining stands of ancient forests, despite risking arrest and braving wet conditions.

“Up here in the tree sit I’m staying dry and in good spirits, from the tree I can see the clouds moving between the huge canopies of these giant trees. I’ll stay up here for as long as I can because I support the people willing to take action to defend our threatened species, water catchments and carbon storage for future generations,” they stated.

“If we don’t act fast to protect what’s left of Victoria’s old growth forests, we will lose a precious line of defence against the looming threat of climate change,” they said.

Across Australia the impact of climate change is having devastating effects on our natural environment. Unprecedented flooding events in Townsville, the mass fish deaths and ecological collapse of the Murray-Darling Basin and the catastrophic fire events rampaging across Tasmania. Meanwhile in Victoria, the so-called progressive Labor government continues to log some of the world’s most carbon dense forests. When these forests are logged and burnt the stored carbon is released into the atmosphere, which accelerates climate change.

Scientific evidence shows that logging old wet forests increases fire risk. A young regrowth forest burns much hotter and more intensely than an old forest. Studies undertaken by the Australian National University have found that logging dries out the forest floor and in time creates a more fire prone landscape due to the dense thirsty regrowth (1).

“Native forest logging in Victoria has no place in the twenty-first century. Our planet desperately needs leadership and action from our state politicians to mitigate the disastrous effects of the current climate emergency.” says Christine Schuringa of Forest Conservation Victoria.

Logging in Victoria has no social license, a recent leaked study by Forest Wood and Products Australia (FWPA) found the majority of people in regional Victoria said native forest logging was unacceptable (2). In the last week alone, nearly 4000 people (3) have sent emails to the Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews demanding his government intervene and protect the old growth forest currently under threat of logging.

Forest Conservation Victoria acknowledge the thousands of years of custodianship over the land and waters of so-called East Gippsland by the Bidwell, Ngario and Gunnai Kurnai nations. We pay our respects to elders past present and emerging and acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded.

1. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/conl.12122
2. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-09/forestry-survey-rejects-native-fo...
3. http://www.geco.org.au/granite_mountain_old_growth_being_logged_take_action

As I write, the bulldozers and chainsaws are brutalising another superb stand of ancient forest not far from where I am just out of Orbost, south-eastern Victoria.

Those trees have stood for 600 years, sheltering and feeding generations of greater gliders and powerful owls; the lush understorey of ferns and blanket leaf have kept delicate lichens and mosses damp and cool in the hottest summers over the millennia. Liquid eyed marsupials will be huddling terrified in their hollows as these giants crash and splinter in a sickening thud that shakes the earth and shocks the heart.

After this brutality, the remaining vegetation is deliberately incinerated with a ring of intensely hot fire. Nothing escapes. It's all part of the 'sustainable forest management' lie that our governments feed us, hoping to hide the reality with a curtain of pleasing language.

We now have the absurd situation where our various governments acknowledge that many native wildlife and plant species are teetering on the edge of extinction, but the assistance offered is little more than recognition and shallow sympathy, laced with lip service and PR spin. The relentless winds of development and logging exploitation blow tough on these exquisite wonders of nature and evolution.

East Gippsland is a prime example of this situation. It has been described by Professor David Bellamy as "the most diverse area of temperate forest I know of on Earth". This small ark — just four per cent of the state — supports seven to ten times more threatened species than any other area of the state, making protection measures here vastly more effective and urgent.

The Victorian state government has been sued four times in recent years over environmental issues. Environment East Gippsland has initiated three of these legal actions and not lost a case, although one has been settled out of court and another is likely to follow suit. The government and its logging agency VicForests agreed to abide by their own laws after being forced to the steps of the Supreme Court.

Why, in a developed country should small regional volunteer groups, which run on a meagre budget, be forced to take on the behemoth monster that is the government? The answer is that our democracy is a façade behind which vested interests and large exploitative corporations call the shots.

Our latest court challenge has resulted in the government committing to prepare plans for saving a small sample of four species that are diminishing as their homes are logged and burnt. But there remains 370 others struggling to survive an endless onslaught from land clearing, logging, development, burning, grazing and mining. We don't know their numbers, whereabouts or condition as the government is taking no responsibility for monitoring their situation.

The Auditor General's report of April 2009 was scathing of the way the state's Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act is administered. It said: "At the current rate of progress, with existing resources, it will take a further 22 years for the department to complete action statements for the 653 items currently listed as threatened".

That was before Victoria's Coalition Government sacked eight tram-loads of scientists and biodiversity staff and axed $130.6 million from its environment department.

Yet Department of Environment and Primary Industries senior minister Peter Walsh's media department tells us they are working hard to protect species. Minister Walsh's meaningless reassurances are just that. They have no legal teeth. The biodiversity and land management sections have been reduced to an ineffective shadow of what it once was — an overworked handful of token staff remain.

As a result of EEG's legal challenge, the beautiful glossy black cockatoo finally had a draft action statement drawn up last month after waiting 18 years on the threatened species list. But Minister Walsh's staff have found a loophole — we now learn that although the plan itself is a legal obligation, it doesn't need to have concrete protection measures. The language does not bind anyone to do anything. For example, to 'protect identified nesting trees' won't ever happen if no one is given that task of looking for them. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

The 18-year delay in producing an action statement allowed continuing clearfelling and burning of the glossy black cockatoos' habitat. This has almost certainly meant its Victorian population is even more precarious. Its population could in fact now be critically endangered in this state. Its belated action statement must be unambiguous and clear as to what actions must be taken to protect it; how it is intended to do this and with what resources.

We do not live in a debt-ridden developing country. We have one of the strongest economies in the world and a most remarkable and diverse array of Australian plants and wildlife. There is no excuse to be flicking them into the extinction pit for the sake of a muscle bound industry's profit margins or the political expedience of a government devoid of morals.

• This article also appeared on ABC online
• Find out more about Environment East Gippsland's efforts to stop old growth logging.
• Find more groups campaigning for the protection of Victoria's old growth forests.
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Traditional Owners, regional communities and climate and conservation groups are calling for an immediate end to logging in native forests across the state and the country.

Tactics used to shut down logging included two blockades that are ongoing, walk-ins and locking onto machinery. A further protest was held at Kinglake in a logged and burnt coupe.

Government sanctioned logging is continuing despite a recent Federal Court ruling that logging in the Central Highlands is in breach of environmental laws designed to protect threatened species. Daniel Andrews has refused to direct the state-owned company VicForests to halt logging despite the court finding their past, present, and future logging plans could be unlawful .
The court found that government-owned VicForests’ operations were in breach of state and federal laws, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) and state-based Code of Practice for Timber Production.

Logging has exemption from federal environment laws under Regional Forests Agreement between the Commonwealth and the State of Victoria. VicForests has lost this exemption by failing to meet legal obligations under the agreements to protect threatened species.

Elders and Traditional Owners are speaking up against the handing over of their Traditional Country, Totems, Stories and Cultural Values to logging agencies without their consent.
"We as the First People belonging to this country, have never given consent for the destruction and decimation of our land,” said Lidia Thorpe, Gunnai / Gunditjmara woman.

"Our Totems, Songlines and cultural identity are intrinsically linked with the bush and all living things within it," said Lidia Thorpe.

“Our mental health and well-being relies on the country to be alive. When it continues to be decimated by governments, it’s also making us sick. It affects our emotional and spiritual well-being,” said Lidia Thorpe.

"Governments have orchestrated and manufactured consent from corporations breaching the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples, article 19, which states 'States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them,’ ” said Lidia Thorpe.

“Despite no prior consent from Traditional Owners, and the Federal Court ruling that the logging is illegal, the state-sanctioned destruction continues. Logging fuels climate change, increasing the risk of bushfire, which in turn destroys more forest, further exacerbating climate change. This deadly cycle must be broken by ending native forest logging,” said Sarah Day, a spokesperson for the protests.

"More than 20 per cent of Australia's forest has burned in the recent megafires, fueled by climate change . An estimated one billion animals have been lost. It is criminal that state and federal governments are allowing logging to destroy critical unburnt threatened species habitat and further damage burnt forests, especially after the court ruling," said Chris Schuringa, a spokesperson for the protests.

"The legality of logging in any forests under the RFAs is under serious question. The Andrews government is effectively ignoring state and federal laws, and now everyday citizens are being left to hold them accountable by taking legal action, and physically putting their bodies on the line to stop the logging. Actions to stop this unlawful destruction will only escalate until state and federal governments step up to protect forests,” said Chris Schuringa.

(Header photo: Mt Cole)