Strzelecki Ranges “Mt Squaretop”, north of Foster.

During the 1930s depression another attempt at settling people in the hills was attempted. Unemployed people were relocated in the steep country. This again failed. Morgan notes that by the ‘later 1930s some permanent mills were being established in the hills, making mainly house timber..’ Morgan’s chapter, ‘The Collapse of the Hillfarms’ ends, ‘the bush has grown back so quickly that evidence of earlier clearing is scarce... the trees have returned to claim their own’.[8] The Strzelecki forest is capable of swallowing the past.

From the 1930s, the Government began a buy back of freehold land in the Eastern Strzeleckis. Many of these ‘farms’ had also successfully and naturally regenerated as forest. Since that time, the State has bought back 28,000 hectares, bringing the amount of public land to approximately 60,000 hectares. The Forests Commission became responsible for this public land and forest. Over the years, the Forests Commission has undergone various bureaucratic mutations. At present it is named the Department of Sustainability and the Environment. At times I refer to this bureaucracy, simply as the Department. [9]

The establishment of a paper mill at Maryvale by Australian Paper Manufacturers (APM) has had a profound influence on land use in Gippsland. In 1936, APM entered into an agreement with the Victorian Government, to source hardwood pulpwood from State Forests. The company completed building a mill at Maryvale in the Latrobe Valley in 1939. During the 1950s APM Forests began acquiring land for plantation development and by 1982 owned 25,000 hectares of land in the Strzelecki Ranges.[10] During the 1960s, a further 8,600 hectares of the Strzelecki State Forest was leased to APM. Moreover, the entire Eastern forest was subject to the Forests (Wood Pulp Agreements) Act, 1974, under which the Forests Commission had to supply APM with annual volumes of hardwood pulpwood. The State Government also made an agreement to supply APM with softwood pulpwood.[11] These agreements had effects on land use determination and forestry practices across the state, however, the Strzeleckis proximity to the Maryvale Mill made it especially vulnerable to industry’s requirements.

By the late 1940s the Department began a hardwood reforestation scheme. The need for reforestation in the Strzeleckis was recognized by the State Development Committee, which stated in the Royal Commission on the Outer Ports, 1927, that this ‘area which once carried some of the finest white mountain ash forest of the State, presents a challenge to man to restore its beauty and productivity’.[12] The aims of the scheme are summed up in the Land Conservation Council report. ‘The hardwood planting program is resulting in the restoration of a forest that will eventually have a similar structure to the original, and options for the future use of the land are being restored’.[13] The scheme, therefore, was to restore forest to land which had been cleared or degraded; not to remove forest from areas which had been left undisturbed or regenerated naturally. However, on the ground, Mountain Ash plantings often took place after logging Mountain Ash or by clearing acacia forests and rainforest, rather than restoring the Ash to cleared land. Furthermore, mixed forest in the southern foothills was cleared to establish pine plantations, with much local opposition against the loss of forest and the use of herbicides and poisons. [14]

The Land Conservation Council report of 1980 tells us that the department facilitated the logging of between 100 ha. and 200 ha. of forest each year. In the years prior to the Land Conservation Council report, the Strzeleckis provided 9,000m³ of sawlogs for the timber industry and 30,000m³ of pulpwood for the Maryvale Mill.[15] Coupes were regenerated with Mountain Ash and the understorey species regenerated themselves without assistance as in other Victorian state forests.

While some in the environment movement view plantation issues as non-forest issues, in the Strzeleckis the two are inextricably linked. Controversy erupted in the 1990s when regenerated logging coupes and Mountain Ash reforestation was relabelled as plantation. Furthermore, the Victorian Government included the bulk of the Strzelecki State Forest native forest as part of the management lease when it sold Victoria’s plantation resource in 1998 to Hancock Victorian Plantations. The repercussions of this privatisation have not been resolved.

In July 2001, Hancock Victorian Plantations acquired the assets of Australian Paper Plantations, giving the company management over approximately 50,000 hectares of the 60,000 hectares of native forest that remains in the Strzelecki Ranges. In the Strzeleckis, the company operates as Grand Ridge Plantations.

Strzelecki Forests: Flora, Fauna and Key Ecological Values

‘The Strzelecki Ranges Bioregion forms a distinct and isolated area of tall wet forests and associated foothill forests. Land clearing and intensive forestry has fragmented and degraded the forest of the ranges. A major park system in the Strzelecki Ranges is needed to ensure protection of the remaining biodiversity of the wet and damp eucalypt forests and cool temperate rainforests of the region.’[16]

The remaining forest in the Strzelecki Ranges is predominantly composed of Wet Forest, Damp forest and Cool Temperate Rainforest. Areas of other Ecological Vegetation Classes include Strzeleckis Warm Temperate Rainforest, Riparian Scrub, Plains Grassy Forest, Rocky Outcrop Shrubland, Shrubby Foothill Forest, Swamp scrub, Lowland Forest, Heathy Woodland and Herb-rich Foothill Forest. Although it is a heavily depleted bioregion with only 19% (60,000 hectares) of original vegetation cover remaining, the majority of what remains forms a continuous link through the upper reaches of the Eastern Strzeleckis. Over 90% of the remaining Wet Forest and Rainforest and 80% of the remaining Damp Forest occurs in the Eastern part of the ranges.

The Strzeleckis are recognised as one of four most significant sites for Cool Temperate Rainforest in Victoria, along with the Otways, the Erinundra Plateau, and the Central Highlands.[17] The canopy is dominated by Myrtle Beech and Southern Sassafras but some areas may have Blackwood as the dominant canopy cover. Cool Temperate Rainforest is listed as a threatened community on the Flora and Fauna Guarantee schedule. The Skirted Treefern, Slender Tree Fern, Slender Forked Fern and Oval Fork Fern are listed as rare and/or threatened species.[18]

The Cool Temperate Rainforest communities overlap with the wet sclerophyll forest, often dominated by Mountain Ash. Mountain Ash forests only grow in select regions of Victoria and Tasmania. In the Strzeleckis other eucalypts include the Mountain Grey Gum, Blue Gum, Strzelecki Gum, Peppermint and Manna Gum. Understorey species include Mountain Pepper, Blanketwood, Musk Daisy Bush, Bootlace Bush, Mountain correa, Muttonwood and Silver Wattle.

The Strzelecki State Forest is home to mammals such as echidnas, platypus, koalas, wombats, two species of antechinus, two species of bandicoot,[19] the Black Wallaby, a variety of gliders and possums (including the Sugar Glider and Greater Glider), several native rats (including the rare Broad-toothed rat) and bats, including the Bent Wing bat, potoroos, and the rare and endangered Spot-tailed Quoll.

A study of the South Gippsland koala population by Dr Bronwyn Houlden, has found ‘that the Strzelecki Ranges has the highest level of genetic variation of any Victorian population she has analyzed.’[20] They are genetically distinct from the koalas originating from French Island, and which have been translocated into other parts of Victoria.[21] Dr. Houlden has stated that ‘the conservation of South Gippsland and Strzelecki Ranges population is of local, State and National significance for conservation of biodiversity in koalas’.[22]

At least 80 species of birds inhabit the forests, the most famous being the Superb Lyrebird. Threatened bird species include the Barking Owl, the Powerful owl, Sooty owl and the Grey goshawk. There are 14 species of reptiles. Native fish are also present - the Australian grayling , Spotted galaxis and the Striped gudgeon. A report on the Australian grayling stated that 'there are no totally protected grayling populations in Victoria. All rivers known to contain grayling are susceptible to some form of habitat degradation.'[23] In this region, the grayling has been found in the Tarwin, Agnes, Albert, Franklin and Latrobe rivers. It is the only extant member of the Prototroctidae family.

There are some small and scattered reserves throughout the Strzelecki Ranges, amounting to approximately 5.000 hectares. The main reserves are Morwell National Park, Tarra-Bulga National Park, Gunyah Gunyah Rainforest Reserve, Mt. Worth State Park, Mirboo Regional Park and Turtons Creek reserve. Less than 2% of the Strzelecki Ranges Bioregion is protected in formal reserves.

Studies and Reports

1. Sites of Zoological Significance in Central Gippsland, 1982 by I Mansergh and K Norris.

This report identified an area at Darlimurla, Yinnar South and in the Tarra Valley as sites of zoological significance in the Strzeleckis. The Darlimurla site contained the Lewin’s Rail, Short nosed Bandicoot, Water-rat and Large-billed Scrubwren. Yinnar South provided habitat for the Brown Treecreeper and Swift Parrot, as well as 88 other species of birds. The Tarra Valley site contained the Water-rat, Sooty Owl, Barking Owl, Collared Sparrowhawk, Forest Raven, Black-faced Monarch, Grey Goshawk and Spencer’s Skink.

The authors noted for the Tarra Valley, that for ‘several species the Strzelecki Range is now probably isolated from similar environments of the Great Dividing Range and it is therefore important to preserve all examples of mature forest that remain in this area to maintain viable populations of the remaining species.’ They continued, ‘Clearfelling, and the creation of monoculture forests of native or exotic trees in the area, is not desirable for wildlife conservation. Enlargement of the present area where wildlife conservation has a high priority is necessary, as is protection of the site from fire’.[24]

Zoological sites of local and scientific interest identified in this report included English’s Corner for the Broad-toothed Rat and Greater Glider; the headwaters of Traralgon Creek for a mature, moist gully; Olsens Bridge for Broad-toothed Rat; Gunyah forest for its mature Mountain Ash and Greater Gliders; and the Alberton West State Forest for its White Stringybark and arboreal mammals.

The report recommended that all sites identified in the report on public land be ‘incorporated into an integrated system of reserves whose primary function is the conservation of wildlife’, and that the ‘maintenance of the diversity and extent of these environments is a minimal requirement’.[25] The report also recommended that ‘whenever possible, stands of mature forest should be maintained and efforts should be made to maintain and increase the area of mature forest to ensure that adequate representation of this age class persists over time’.[26] Currently, some of the Darlimurla site lies within the proposed Mirboo Regional Park and some of the Yinnar South site is contained within the Morwell National Park. The Tarra Valley site is partially within the Tarra-Bulga National Park. However, part of the Tarra site, part of the Gunyah site, Olsens Bridge and English’s Corner are currently leased to Grand Ridge Plantations. Alberton West remains state forest. A further recommendation was that the adequacy of the reserve system for the entire study area be reviewed at least every 10 years.

2. Sites of Botanical Significance in Central Gippsland 1984 by Gullan et al

This report identified 400 ha. at Rytons and 2500 hectares in the Gunyah region as being of State significance for undisturbed wet sclerophyll forest and Cool Temperate rainforest. The Rytons area is currently leased to Grand Ridge Plantations and only part of the Gunyah area is protected in the Gunyah Gunyah Rainforest Reserve; the remainder being leased to Grand Ridge Plantations.[27]

3. Sites of Botanical Significance for Rainforest in South Gippsland 1990 Natural Resources & Environment Flora and Fauna Survey and Management Group

In 1990 the Flora and Fauna Survey and Management Group Rainforest Project Team surveyed some areas of South Gippsland. The study found significant regional, state and national sites of rainforest in the Strzeleckis at Morwell National Park, the Tarra Valley, Turtons Creek, Gunyah and Rytons. Gunyah Gunyah was rated as being of national significance. It contained the, rare rainforest epiphyte, the Slender Fork-fern, Tmesipteris elongata and the Slender Tree-fern and Skirted Tree-fern.

4. Rainforests and Cool Temperate Mixed Forests of Victoria 1999 B.Peel

This report identified College Creek as a significant site for rainforest in the Strzeleckis. College Creek was given a state significance rating.

The vegetation community, Strzeleckis Warm Temperate Rainforest is described. This community is restricted to the Strzelecki Ranges.

5. The Nature Conservation Review, Victoria 2001 by B. Traill and C. Porter.

This study was the third such review of Victoria’s conservation record commissioned by the Victorian National Parks Association. One of four main recommendations for land based reserves was that ‘a major new park system be established to conserve the biodiversity of the Strzelecki Ranges’.[28]

6. Strzelecki Ranges Biodiversity Study 2001 S. Mueck et al.

This report focused on the Hancock leasehold and adjacent lands. The report found eight distinct plant communities within the study area, six of which are threatened, and one depleted; the presence of seven fauna species of national, and eight of state conservation significance; four plant species of national and eight of state conservation significance. National and state conservation significant species included Spot-tailed Quoll and Powerful Owl. The study identified ‘inappropriate timber harvesting’ as a ‘potentially threatening process to the biodiversity of the Strzelecki Ranges’[29] and identified five core areas of high biodiversity Gunyah Gunyah, Jack River, College Creek , Upper Merrimans Creek and Tarra-Bulga and two habitat links

The College Creek rainforest area was reassessed as being of national conservation significance.

The study concluded that ‘the Core Areas are particularly sensitive to disturbance and the high biodiversity values of the Core Areas would be substantially enhanced if these areas (and also habitat links) were excluded from timber production’.[30]

Little Franklin River, eastern Strzeleckis. Photo by Kim Devenish.

Protecting the Forests: Conservation Campaigns in the Strzeleckis.

Early Campaigns

The earliest forest campaigns in the Strzeleckis date back to the 1880s. At this time, much of the Western Strzeleckis and the lowland areas of South Gippsland had been taken up for selection, and the pressure was on for the government to open up the tall forested, steep areas in the Eastern Strzeleckis. The Eastern Strzeleckis from west to east includes the catchments, of the Turtons Creek, West Morwell River, Franklin River, Agnes River, East Morwell River, Dingo Creek, Albert River, Colleges Creek, Middle Creek, Jack River, Tarra River, Macks Creek and Griegs Creek.

Conservation groups argued against ‘the destruction of South Gippsland’s forests, the burning of valuable timber and the damage being done to the rain catchment hinterland’,[31] as settlement encroached on the Great Forest of Gippsland. In 1881, John Rossiter, owner of the Yarram Standard wrote against the selection of any land in the Mt. Fatigue area. In an editorial he expressed concern about the effects of clearing on rainfall, the destruction of the Agnes and Franklin headwaters, and sacrificing our patrimony to land hunger.[32] The Government did reserve a few areas in the Strzeleckis, situated at Mt. Fatigue, Jumbuck, Callignee and Mirboo. Over the years, the Department appears to have either forgotten or deliberately overlooked many of these original reserves, although they stubbornly persist on parish maps.

The Gunyah Timber Reserve at Mt. Fatigue was gazetted by the Victorian Government on the recommendation of the Shire of Alberton Council in 1882. The reserve covered an area of 25,280 acres for the preservation and growth of timber.[33] During the 1890s Depression, the Government was under pressure to make land available for the unemployed. More land was made available in the steep, hill country of the Eastern Strzeleckis, but the Mt. Fatigue reserve was retained.[34] Part of this original reserve is now contained within the Gunyah Gunyah Rainforest reserve. While labelled a timber reserve, its purpose was conservation. It reserved the area from grazing and clearing for agriculture. Furthermore, in the early days of timber getting, trees were selectively logged rather than clearfelled with heavy machinery, and there were fewer conflicts over competition for the suite of forest values, such as, water production, water quality, tourism and biodiversity protection.[35] Despite this, the Department has not treated the remainder of the original Gunyah Timber Reserve with any special consideration. In 1998 it was leased to Hancock Victorian Plantations. A timber reserve in the parishes of Callignee and Jeeralang was gazetted at the same time and consisted of 5,600 acres.

Near Boolarra, a 1200 acre reserve was gazetted, June 15, 1886. This area remains part of the ‘Proposed Mirboo Regional Park’ following the Land Conservation Council assessment in 1982. This proposed reserve consists of four small separate areas. Having remained as a proposed park for over 20 years, the reserve status of these four blocks in the Western Strzeleckis remains in limbo.

In the Jumbuck area, a section of land was reserved as the site for an agricultural college. The college was never built, but the area retains the name ‘College Creek’. Successive Governments and the Department seem to have ignored the biological values of this reserve. This area was leased to Amcor in the 1960s for plantation purposes.

There appears to be a tradition of Shire Councils approaching State Government for the reservation of forest in the Strzeleckis. The Shire of Alberton was instrumental in the creation of Bulga Park in 1904, and at the urging of the Shire Engineer, Frank Corrigan, assisted with the reservation of the upper Tarra Valley in 1909. The Council provided tracks, shelters and a caretaker/ranger. Frank Corrigan obtained grants to establish walking tracks, picnic areas and the much-loved suspension bridge over Macks Creek.[36]

In the 1950s naturalists and residents became concerned about an area near Yinnar South, an area of private bushland and home to the Butterfly Orchid. The idea of purchasing the land was mooted and years of lobbying began. Ellen Lyndon, naturalist and historian, was instrumental in writing submissions and appealing to the National Parks Authority and the National Parks Association. The Gippsland Field Naturalists, later becoming the Latrobe Valley Field Naturalists was formed in 1960 and lobbying continued for the establishment of a park. Eventually, the Shire of Morwell received a government grant for half the purchase price and the National Parks Association raised the other half to acquire the land. “The land was then transferred to the Crown and declared Morwell National Park in 1967’.[37]

The Shire of Warragul and the local Naturalists Club began the campaign to reserve a park around Mt. Worth in the Western Strzeleckis in 1970. The Mt. Worth State Park was established in 1984.[38]

In 1941, APM’s Maryvale Paper Mill came into operation. There is an interesting historical reference to the opposition to clear-felling from this period, perhaps the first in Victoria. In a history of the company, it is recorded that there were ‘complaints about the odour emissions from the chemical processes and about pollution in the Latrobe River...and also protests about clear-felling in the foothills of the Strzeleckis...’[39]

The 1970s ‘The Forest Destruction Commission’

‘Noted district naturalist, Mr. Norrie Rossiter, of Hedley, led a group of interested residents on a walk in the forest area of Mt. Fatigue, when Mr. Rossiter was able to point out the many species of native flora that abound in this picturesque spot’.[40]

In the 1970s, concerns about the management of the Strzelecki State Forest gained media attention and a high public profile. Local conservation groups raised concerns about the viability of the small areas reserved in the Strzeleckis and other forest management issues, especially the replacement of natural forest by the establishment of Pinus radiata plantations, and the use of 1080 baiting. The 1970 Land Conservation Act had established the Land Conservation Council, whose function was to investigate and make recommendations regarding the balanced use of land in Victoria. Reports were written on each study area and after a public consultation process, final recommendations if approved by government would be proclaimed. In the late 1970s local groups were aware that this process was due to start for the South Gippsland District Area 2, which included the Eastern Strzeleckis.

The Gunyah area received attention again in the late 1970s. In 1979, the Foster Mirror ran a front page article, ‘Replanting of Gunyah Forest’.[41] This article described the Forests Commission recent clearing of parts of the Gunyah Forestry reserve and replanting with young Mountain Ash trees. An editorial in the same issue criticized the Forests Commission for this work. ‘Another area in our shire, which for many years has been compared with Bulga and Tarra Valley Parks for its natural beauty is the Gunyah Forestry Reserve. However, a large area near Mt. Fatigue has recently been denuded by the Forests Commission, without prior knowledge of the residents of this shire, and without a protest from self-termed conservationists.’[42] The local paper had not forgotten the Gunyah reserve.

Conservation groups, once notified, did take an interest in the logging of the Gunyah forest and the future plans for logging near Dingo Creek in the Gunyah vicinity. The South Gippsland Conservation Society criticized the Forest Commission’s lack of liaison with the public and met with the commission and members of the Yarram & District Conservation Group in the forest on the Dingo Creek Road. Well known local botanist, Mrs. Ellen Lyndon in her contribution to the Mirror described the concerned residents as ‘as fine a gathering of guys and girls as one would meet in a day’s march’ and ‘a typical mum, dad and the kids sort of crowd’.[43] She expressed concern that the Forests Commission was logging the area prior to the Land Conservation Council’s assessment of the area and suggested a forest park stretching from the Midland Highway to the Foster-Gunyah Road and the Grand Ridge Road. ‘Nothing in the way of parks or reserves has so far been set aside on the southern fall of the range’, she said. Mr. Edgar from the Forests Commission arrived at 2pm. A moratorium on logging the area was refused, but the commission said they would only plant Mountain Ash in the catchment and not pines.

A letter to the editor in May gives an interesting local slant on the commission’s activities in the Strzeleckis.

‘With regard to the Gunyah Forest we have recently had, through the columns of your paper, the brisk views of the Forests Commission as they go about their work of dismantling this once great primeval rain forest...

Work in the western areas will soon be completed and a start made on logging to the east.

Sounds more like a Forests Destruction Commission!

We know and appreciate that the Forests Commission does a fine job of reforesting the derelict areas of the Strzelecki Ranges and of managing appropriate forests to meet the demands of industry for timber, but the most beautiful and accessible areas of Gunyah did not need managing. They were lovely beyond description and should have been reserved for future generations. Does the Commission not have a brief to conserve and preserve?’[44] This question is raised time and time again by the groups and individuals examining the Department’s treatment of the Strzelecki forests.

At Mt. Best in November 1979, residents met for a forest walk with naturalist, Norrie Rossiter and a discussion with the Forests Commission over their plans for the Gunyah/Mt. Fatigue forest.

Further to the east the forest surrounding the Tarra and Bulga National Parks and the parks themselves became a focus for local conservationists. The Balook and District Residents' Association (BADRA) in a letter to the Premier, Mr. Hamer pointed out that the Bulga National Park and Tarra Valley National Park were both small in area and relied on their viability as reserves for wildlife on the surrounding forest areas. They complained that natural forest areas were being diminished and compromised “partly by APM Ltd, but to a far greater extent by the Forest Commission itself.” Furthermore, they argued against the planting of Pinus radiata plantations as detrimental to the preservation of the flora and fauna.[45]

Proposed logging plans for the Macks Creek Valley, situated between the Tarra and Bulga Parks was of particular concern for local conservation groups. The valley contained mature Mountain Grey Gum and Messmate and was home to the King Parrot (earlier widespread throughout Strzeleckis, but now limited to this area and the Mt. Fatigue/Gunyah area).[46] BADRA objected strongly to any moves to further log in the Macks Creek Valley and called for the area to be made part of a joined Tarra and Bulga park.[47] This proposal was supported by the Yarram & District Conservation Group and the Shire of Alberton.[48]

In November, the Department began logging. Telegrams were sent to the Minister of Forests, demanding that logging cease. The YDCG sent letters to interested groups, politicians, Shire Councils, peak environmental groups and the media. On November 18, conservationists, loggers and forestry officials met on site. The Age reported that ’tempers strained and all went away as firmly convinced of their own position’.[49] The Yarram group enlisted the support of Neil McInnes MP, Member for Gippsland South, who supported the halt to logging operations pending the LCC report and supporting the enlargement and amalgamation of the Bulga and Tarra Valley parks. The Conservation Council of Victoria objected to the commencement of logging by the Forests Commission.[50] Logging was stopped for the moment.

1980s: The Land Conservation Council; conservation groups call for the joining the Tarra and Bulga Parks and the establishment of parks in the Gunyah-Mount Fatigue area

Eastern Strzeleckis: ‘The Proposed recommendations clear the way for the last remnants of ‘mature’ and ‘over-mature’ forests in the Eastern Strzeleckis to be sacrificed to the timber/pulpwood industry’.[51]

The Land Conservation Council’s report, South Gippsland Area District 2 was released in October 1980. Community and conservation groups consolidated their suggestions for enlarged reserves and new reserves in the Strzelecki Ranges.

The Yarram & District Conservation Group, the South Gippsland Conservation Society, the Conservation Council of Victoria, and the Bird Observers Club made submissions to the LCC proposing extensions to the Morwell National Park, the joining and extension of the Tarra-Valley National Park, and the creation of a reserve in the Gunyah-Mount Fatigue area including the headwaters of the Agnes and Franklin Rivers and Dingo Creek.

The YDCG submission emphasised the lack of reserves in the Eastern Strzeleckis and demanded an ‘immediate cessation of pine planting in the Yarram Forest District and a public enquiry into the activities and management practices by the Forests Commission’.[52] They asked the Council to recommend a Gunyah-Gunyah State Park, of approximately 4,000 hectares in the catchments of the Agnes River, Franklin River and Dingo Creek, a portion of mature forest in the Upper Morwell River and a wildlife link between this reserve and the Tarra-Bulga National Park.

The South Gippsland Conservation Society’s submission supported the extension and joining of the Tarra and Bulga Parks, (which at the time amounted to 220 hectares), by including the Grieg Creek Valley and the headwaters of Jack River. The society supported the extension of the Morwell National Park and also asked for a ‘reserve of appreciable size’ in the Gunyah Gunyah/Mt. Fatigue area, emphasizing that ‘the total area reserved should not be less than 4,000 hectares’.[53] They also suggested reserves at Allambee South, Mirboo, Darlimurla, Boolarra, Traralgon South, Gormandale, Hazel Park, Toora Tin Mine and Turtons Creek. All these suggestions were supported by the Conservation Council of Victoria.[54]

Support, interest and concern was also shown beyond South Gippsland. The Bird Observers Club’s submission commented on the reduction of wildlife habitat caused by the conversion of native forests into pine plantations. In regard to timber production, the group stressed the need for ‘permanent reservation of public land for nature conservation’ and expressed concern about the public land being leased to A.P.M., ‘a private company whose major aim is the maximising of profit’. [55] They also supported the proposal for a significant nature reserve to be created in the Gunyah/Mt. Fatigue area. The Conservation Council of Victoria also submitted a proposal to join the Bulga and Tarra parks, which included the reservation of public land in the headwaters of Jack River, Macks Creek Valley, Greigs Creek Valley and public acquisition of APM land in the Tarra and Macks Creek Valley to create a park of approximately 7,000 hectares.

When the Land Conservation Council’s proposed recommendations were released in June, 1982, they were met with anger and disappointment by many conservation groups, who had pinned hopes of beneficial conservation outcomes on the process. The LCC were criticized for not recommending more reserves, and not enlarging reserves sufficiently. The proposed recommendation to denigrate the status of the Tarra and Bulga National Parks state parks and Morwell National Park to a regional park did not win them many friends. Many of the groups rewrote their submissions calling for further reservation and giving further evidence of endangered species and minimum habitat requirements.

The South Gippsland Conservation Society wrote that the society was ‘appalled by the LCC’s proposed recommendations for the South Gippsland 2 area.’ The y pointed out that, ‘a considerable amount of work has been carried out voluntarily by members of the public for the long term protection of public lands. This work has largely been ignored’.[56] In a second submission to the Land Conservation Council, the society emphasized the need for at least 10,000 hectares for a viable combined Tarra and Bulga National Park. The society rejected the Council’s recommendation that the Gunyah area ‘s special values would be protected through the implementation of Forest Commission management prescriptions and urged the LCC to recommend management be vested in the National Parks Service.[57] The society appealed for support by outlining their concerns in a letter to the Shire of South Gippsland— ‘the Strzeleckis have been turned over to forestry developments by the LCC and that tourist and recreational values have been largely ignored to provide for APM and the Forest Commission of Victoria’. The society urged the Councillors to become familiar with the LCC’s proposed recommendations and emphasised the creation of a national park at Gunyah as the number one matter for attention and consideration by the Shire of South Gippsland.[58]

While the Land Conservation Council was deliberating, the Forests Commission again decided to log in the controversial Macks Creek valley. As if to further enrage conservation groups, this time after logging, the Commission established a pine plantation At a public meeting in Yarram the community moved and passed a number of resolutions including a protest to the Minister of Forests over ‘pine planting in the Macks Creek Valley in an area that the LCC is still considering ... The meeting agreed that the Forests Commission have in fact pre-empted the LCC recommendations’. The meeting also called for ‘a cessation of pine planting in the Yarram Forest District and for a public enquiry into forestry practices in the Yarram District’.[59] These resolutions demonstrated the feelings of disillusionment with the Forests Commission in the district and in stronger terms BADRA suggested that ‘since 1978, Forestry activity around the Parks has been so frequent and extensive as to suggest that the Forests Commission are deliberately pre-empting the future boundaries of the proposed enlarged park.’[60] The community’s concerns that a public process had been undermined, and that nature conservation was low on the agenda in the area, was echoed during the late 1990s when the Gippsland Regional Forest Agreement process was underway

Towards the finalization of the LCC process, Victoria had a change of government when the Australian Labor Party won the election. The South Gippsland Conservation Society wrote to various ALP Ministers about the recommendations of the LCC— ‘whilst we realise they are a product of the previous Government, if they become final and absolute we will see the last remaining natural areas of the Strzeleckis fade away into oblivion’.[61]

The Land Conservation Council’s Final Recommendations were published in November, 1982. In the introduction, the report says that ‘It is desirable that as much of the public land as possible is placed under forms of use that do not have a major impact on the natural ecosystem ... but, because of the study area’s importance to Victorian industry, this has been difficult to achieve’.[62] In the Strzeleckis, this must be construed as being the timber and pulp industries. All in all, only small concessions were made to formal reservation in the Strzelecki forests, despite the 1980 Land Conservation Council study stating that the area had a ‘high capability for nature conservation’.[63]

The Council recommended that Tarra and Bulga parks be joined and enlarged to 1300 hectares by way of purchase of some APM land and the inclusion of some of the Macks Creek catchment. This falls a long way short of the 7,000 - 10,000 hectares suggested by the community. A Mirboo Regional Park was recommended incorporating four small blocks at Allambee South, Hallstons Bush, Mriboo North and Boolarra, adding up to 1210 hectares. The National Parks (Amendment)Act 1986 enlarged the Tarra-Bulga National Park to 1230 hectares, smaller than the LCC recommendation.[64] To date, the Mirboo Regional Park remains only as ‘proposed’.

The emphasis on timber supply was also evident in the recommendation that the primary use of the native forest areas of the Strzeleckis be hardwood production. However, the council added that ‘constraints are nevertheless placed on timber production in order to protect floral, faunal, recreational, water catchment and landscape values’ and that ‘proper consideration should be given to non-timber values’.[65] The report also stated that their 'knowledge of the distribution and ecology of plants was very imperfect and that there may be areas where special values remain unrecognized.[66] The council recommended that the public land in the Strzeleckis, ‘remain or become reserved forest under the provisions of the Forests Act 1958’. It also said that the present legal status and land tenure should continue, and called for further proclamation of water catchments.[67]

In regard to the Gunyah/Mt. Fatigue area, the Council recommended that ‘the attractive wet gully plant communities (including mountain ash, myrtle beech, blackwoods, and tree ferns) in the headwaters of the West Morwell, Dingo, Franklin, and Agnes Rivers’ be ‘protected by section 50 reserve or prescription’.[68] This vagueness of this recommendation, without mention of number of hectares involved or specific boundaries in an area where the public campaigned for a large formal reserve, would lead to further conflict between the public and the department over the next decades.

Throughout the 1980s the Yarram & District Conservation Group continued to argue with the Department about the continued planting of softwood in the Strzeleckis, the effect of logging on water quality and the industry’s focus on woodchips.

In 1983, the group moved to initiate a public inquiry into the Victorian Timber Industry. The group’s letter to the Minister for Forests, Mr. R A Mackenzie called for a ‘full and open public inquiry into the timber industry in Victoria’.[69] The letter expressed concerns about the Forest Pulpwood Agreements Act — its detrimental effect on the timber industry by locking the industry on a woodchipping course; and its contribution to ecological and environmental problems. through the encouragement of plantation monocultures and their associated problems of erosion, soil degradation and herbicide and pesticide use. The group sought support for the inquiry by writing to politicians and political parties, newspapers, the Sawmillers Association, and 280 groups with environmental interests. The Weekly Times ran an article ‘Yarram group calls for timber Inquiry’, quoting extensively the president of the group at the time, Andy Knorr.[70]

The Government established an Inquiry into the Timber Industry, and Professor Ian Ferguson, Professor of Forest Science, University of Melbourne was appointed to head it. The Inquiry commenced on May 14, 1984 inviting public submissions and setting dates for public hearings. This Inquiry into the Timber Industry produced one major conservation outcome by recommending that the conversion of forest into plantation must cease across the whole state. The Yarram & District Conservation Group certainly played their part in this decision by first instigating the call for a public inquiry and voicing their concerns over the loss of Strzelecki forests for plantation establishment.

Throughout 1985 and 1986, the Department carried out logging in the Gunyah/Mt. Fatigue area, specifically in the Agnes River and Dingo Creek headwaters. This logging served as a catalyst for further campaigning for a reserve at Gunyah and in the Woomera Creek catchment (part of the Gunyah/Mt. Fatigue area).[71]

The Mount Best Concerned Residents Association was formed in August 1986 after the community became ‘aware of the nature and effects of current logging and replanting operations in the Mt. Fatigue area’.[72]

In July, Barry Traill, zoologist at Monash University was the guest speaker of the South Gippsland Conservation Society, Leongatha Branch. His talk featured the Cool Temperate Rainforest community in the Agnes and Franklin headwaters in the Gunyah area. He explained that the only part of the Gunyah forest protected in reserve, was a 200 metre wide roadside reserve and that logging plans were drawn up for the area. The South Gippsland Conservation Society began collecting information and preparing submissions for the protection of the Gunyah forest in a flora and fauna reserve. In August, a field trip was organized with Mr. Traill to look at the giant Mountain Ash, Myrtle Beech and epiphytes along the Toora-Gunyah Road.

A chance meeting took place when the SGCS with Mr. Traill travelled further south along the Toora-Gunyah Road to examine a recent logging coupe and by happy accident met with members of the recently formed Mt. Best Concerned Residents. Here in the heart of the forest, miles from a town, a petrol station, a shop, members of the community concerned about the Strzelecki forests met. Both groups retired to the Mt. Best Hall for a cuppa and a chat.

The Mount Best group began writing letters to politicians, shire councillors and the Department to protest about the logging and reforestation operations and proposed operations in the Gunyah/Mt. Fatigue area. The group called a public meeting for September 19, 1986 at the Mt. Best Hall, which officers from the Department and seventy people attended.

Mr. Leversha, Assistant Regional Manager of Conservation, Forests and Lands, told the meeting that the Department was providing ‘sawmill logs to private enterprise and pulpwood needs to the APM at Maryvale.[73] He also quoted from the LCC Final Recommendations which had referred to the success of the reforestation scheme in restoring Mountain Ash to the area. Mr. Ian Finton from the Department explained that the latest logging and replanting of about 30 ha. had resulted in about 8,000 tonnes of sawlogs and the same in pulpwood.[74] These speeches raised some interesting issues about the management of the Strzelecki forests. They revealed that what the Department was calling reforestation was actually native forest logging followed by regeneration. The Department wasn’t regenerating Mountain Ash on cleared, degraded land— it was cutting forest. This view was also expressed at a Council meeting on September 11. The Foster Mirror reported that at the South Gippsland Shire Council meeting, councillors had looked at letters from ‘several residents of the hills, expressing concern at the devastation being wrought on the last remaining native forest surrounding Mt. Fatigue’. [75] In the article, Cr. Honey summed up the forest situation, saying, ‘The department is buying up nonviable farm land for forestation. Mt. Fatigue is a beautiful area with old trees, and I don’t see the need to replant this land.’[76]

Mr. Barry Traill was present at the meeting and explained that in order to protect the rainforest gullies in the Franklin and Agnes catchments as recommended by the LCC, there needed to be buffers from logging. The meeting passed a proposal that the Department ‘investigate the Gunyah area with a view to a Section 50 reservation in conjunction with community consultation’. A sub-committee was formed to work with the Department, comprised of three local residents and Barry Traill to look at the protection of the Gunyah forests. In regard to the Woomera Creek area Mr. Leversha said, ‘I am not hopeful that the department will be sympathetic to your cause’.[77] The Mt. Best Concerned Residents Association supported the call for a reserve in the Franklin and Agnes headwaters, writing submissions and letters to the department and the government. However, its main efforts went into the Woomera Creek forest area, (part of the Agnes catchment), and a protracted negotiation with the Department ensued.

Throughout 1986 and 1987 the Mount Best group met with departmental staff to discuss the Woomera Catchment. In October 1986 the Department appeared to be conciliatory, hinting that the area, composed of 1914 regrowth of Mountain Ash, blackwoods and tree ferns would be ‘spared from further development for the hardwood timber industry’.[78] However, the Department also engaged the group in discussions about different clearing and replanting techniques and organised a ‘Perception Study’, in which panoramic photographs were to be overlaid with theoretical alterations to the landscape to gauge local reaction. [79] The Department also wanted to proceed with the bulldozing of a new road despite having agreed to a 12 month moratorium on the site. From August through November, the group clarified its own position, and by December made a formal submission to the Department— ‘On the Future of the Regrowth Forest on the Southern Face of the Mount Fatigue-Woomera Creek Ridge’. The submission called for a flora and fauna reserve of approximately 750 hectares, the banning of aerial 1080 baiting throughout the region and the cessation of strip-clearing as a regeneration technique.

The submission emphasised the value of the regrowth forest of the Woomera Creek area with its potential for succession, the presence of rainforest plants in the gullies, the diversity of understorey flora and its value to the fauna of the area—wallabies, wombats, echidnas, lyrebirds and platypuses. The submission was critical of the removal of understorey and mature trees by Departmental reafforestation activities and subsequent reduction in habitat in the region, as well as effects of these activities on soil erosion and siltation of creeks, rivers, and ultimately Corner Inlet, where seagrass beds would be threatened. Like other groups and individuals over the decades, the MBCR asked— why hasn’t the Department done more to conserve, enhance and protect the remnant forest of the Eastern Strzeleckis under its jurisdiction?

The following year, there were more complaints about department activities from the Mount Best Concerned Residents. These included the use of aerial baiting of 1080 targeted at wallabies. The group objected to the department’s use of the word vermin to describe ‘native animals in Reserved Forests’.[80] The newspaper article explained that these animals ‘are of course, protected by law from attack by all except the Department of Conservation and heavy penalties are rightly applied to transgressors...’ ‘Due to public concern, a moratorium was placed on aerial application of 1080 in the Yarram region in August 1987.[81], but hand baiting continued. In one area, the Department laid baits and stated that the treatment would be applied about five times over two years. The impact of this poisoning program throughout the Strzeleckis on the wildlife of the area has never been assessed.[82]

South Gippslanders attending the ‘Keep Gippsland Green’ rally at the Myer Music Bowl in November 1986 circulated a brochure called ‘Keep South Gippsland Green Too!’, which highlighted the need to protect the old growth forest at Gunyah and 500 hectares of regrowth forest at Mt. Fatigue.

The meetings with the Department about the proposed reserve in the Woomera Creek/Mt Fatigue area were proving frustrating. Ms. Susan Dorrington in a letter to the editor described the process as ‘six months of fruitless negotiations’.[83] The group decided to appeal directly to the Minister, Joan Kirner. A letter explained, that The Department’s emphasis on reforestation and logging was incompatible with the group’s demands for a reserve, no matter how many visual perception studies were carried out or different ways of protecting seedlings. The frustrations of the six months of negotiations were apparent, in the letter’s reference to the Department’s inability to truly negotiate over leaving areas alone, changing their practices of strip clearing and use of 1080 poison.[84]

In March 1987, there was an attempt by the Yarram & District Conservation Group to prevent the Department logging the Dingo Creek catchment—also part of the Gunyah/Mt. Fatigue area. At the Yarram show, 350 signatures were collected and delivered to the Department. Logging continued in this catchment throughout 1988, despite the LCC recommendations to preserve the flora of its headwaters. Also in March, 1987 the South Gippsland Conservation Society and local residents began a campaign objecting to a mining licence application in the Turtons Creek Valley. Mr. Tom Wallace, Member for Gippsland South argued that, ’mine development would have ruined an extremely valuable pocket of rainforest...’[85] The mining application was rejected by the Department of Industry, Technology and Resources in July the same year.

Progress on the establishment of a reserve in the Upper Franklin and Agnes catchments at Gunyah proved more successful. In June 1987, Joan Kirner announced a new reserve of 680 hectares in the headwaters of the Agnes and Franklin Rivers—the Gunyah Gunyah Rainforest Reserve. This reserve is much smaller than the original Gunyah Timber Reserve of the 1880s and less than the 3,000 hectares classified as a site of botanical significance in the Gunyah-Mt. Fatigue and Rytons, Dingo Creek area.[86] It was a long way from the 4,000 ha. reserve and link to Tarra-Bulga proposed during the LCC Process by various conservation groups and did not include all the headwaters of the Agnes and Franklin rivers or any of the headwaters of Dingo Creek, Morwell River East Branch, which had been recommended for protection by the LCC. However, given the reluctance of the Department to conserve forest in the Eastern Strzeleckis, this was welcome news.

The Woomera Creek reserve proposal remained unresolved. After years of negotiations, the Department released a draft plan for reforestation in the controversial area. A public meeting was held in Foster on November 28, 1989 at which the department presented its plan and hoped for resolution. However, members of the public complained that the department had failed to advertise the meeting in the local paper, The Mirror and had not given the public enough time to respond to the plan. Comments were due in two weeks. The department’s ‘Mt. Fatigue Reforestation Plan’ proposed to clear and replant approximately 200 hectares.’[87] This reforestation was described as being part of the ‘overall native forest reforestation plan for the Yarram region’.[88] Seedlings used would be produced from seeds obtained in the area. Members of the public were concerned that reforestation could mean that the area would be logged again. Mr. Hemphill from the Department stated that logging wouldn’t occur until ‘80 years down the track’[89], and if the community were against logging, the issue could be debated at that time. This view was reinforced by Ross Pridgin, also from the Department, who advised, ‘that will be a decision to be made quite a time down the track when further reviews are made, probably once we’ve all passed on, as to whether this will be part of the production forest or not’[90] The departmental staff stressed that to reforest is to leave the option open of harvesting in the future. ‘Whether that option is taken up or not is up to the future. And that’s been the same thing with every area in the Strzeleckis that we have bought back or resumed after people have walked off, and reforested’.[91] Given the bungle with the advertisement for the meeting, it was resolved that another public meeting be held at Mt. Best in January.

At the Mt. Best public meeting, the department again assured the community that they weren’t planting plantation species; and that the plan was to restore the forest to its original condition. “I stress from the outset that its the Mt. Fatigue Reforestation Plan...that’s not a sleight of hand or a card trick, it definitely means that. .... the first steps in any management of this area is to restore it to its original condition, then the debate about whether its logged or not can be taken up at a future date’.[92] At both these public meetings, the Department went to great lengths to insist that they were not establishing plantations.

The Mount Best group objected to the department’s plan and remained adamant that the entire area be left undisturbed, ‘to be managed as a community resource, rather than as an adjunct of the timber industry’. In February 1990, a meeting with the then Minister, Kay Setches, saw their request for a reserve denied.[93]

The 1990s: Amcor and the Strzeleckis; Opposition to the Big Privatisation; The Call for a large National Park; Gippsland Regional Forest Agreement; Hancocks buy timber rights in the Strzeleckis; David Bellamy visits the Strzeleckis; Forest Management under scrutiny; Labor wins State election.

“Internationally renowned botanist Professor David Bellamy of Durham University visited the Gunyah area of the beleaguered Strzelecki State Forest... He was unequivocal in his support for the establishment of the Strzelecki National Park proposal to protect what remains of the Great Southern forest, saying ‘this must be the place for a national park’.”[94]

In the early nineties there were some rumours noted in the minutes of the Yarram and District Conservation Group that there was a proposal to sell or lease or hand over management of the pine plantations and possibly hardwood resource in South and Central Gippsland. There were hints that APM may be the recipient of these resources. The group wrote to the Government asking for clarification on this issue and in 1992 received a letter saying, that yes, APM had initiated discussions with the DC&E ‘with a view to exploring a change in the management of the State’s Gippsland plantations.’ The letter says that the proposal was not accepted. The letter finished with the statement, ‘You may rest assured that any future proposals , from APM or any other party, will also be rigorously evaluated to ensure the interests of the Victorian Community are taken into account before any decision is taken’.[95] The group seemed to suspend meetings around this time, no doubt, tired from many years of submission writing and arguing with the department.[96] More of this later.

In 1996, Suzie Zent and Elaina Fraser, local naturalists, began to systematically photograph and record species in the College Creek catchment. This is the area north of the Grand Ridge Road, close to the Tarra Bulga park which had been set aside in the early last century as a site for an agricultural college. The college was never built. This beautiful part of the forest was leased to Amcor in the 1960s along with other public forest for plantation purposes. The extent of rainforest in this area had not been surveyed and the work by Ms Fraser and Ms Zent contributed to further investigations by botanists. Concerned at the erosion and damage to part of the rainforest, the pair asked Amcor if a track could be closed. However, in the ensuing months while their letter went ignored, continued their investigation, eventually mapping the entire subcatchment. Discovering the extent of the rainforest in the College Creek area, resulted in the call for ministerial protection of the entire area. The work of these two diligent conservationists would extend beyond this catchment as later events unfolded.

In April 1996, Friends of the Gippsland Bush was formed. This was partly in response to applications by Amcor to clear freehold forest and convert to plantation, however from its inception, the group also had a strong interest in forest management and plantation management issues. Theo Morsinck a founding member had been collecting photographs and information regarding Amcor’s forestry practices. A rally was held at Jeeralang North, which included walks to visit native bush and to inspect pine plantation clearing and a landslip at Jeeralang Creek. Anthony Amis, a representative from Friends of the Earth, attended the rally and began a close collaboration with FOGB in regard to Strzelecki issues.

The campaign opposing Amcor’s applications to clear forest for plantations gained momentum throughout the community. Most of the clearing was proposed Amcor’s extensive land holdings in the Strzelecki Ranges. Amcor had applied to clear approximately 2,000 hectares of private forest across five shires. The applications were advertised and 219 objections were received. The Latrobe Shire received 113 objections, including 3 petitions containing 464 signatures. The Shires requested the Minister for Planning and Local Government make a decision on the clearing applications. The Minister, Mr. Rob Maclellan, appointed a panel to consider the applications, the objections and submissions received. Local conservation groups and individuals were active in writing letters of objections and submissions to the Panel. The Yarram and District Conservation Society; the Madalya Landcare Group, the Friends of Tarra Bulga National Park, and Strzelecki Land for Wildlife Group wrote submissions and letters of objection to the proposed clearings. Environment Victoria presented expert evidence to the Panel during the hearings. The Panel sat between May and September 1996.

The Panel found the Amcor’s applications to be at odds with the Native Vegetation Retention controls, including protection of habitat for native plants and animals, soil protection, waterway protection, sustainability, maintenance of ecological processes and genetic diversity and in general to the importance of retaining, restoring and enhancing native vegetation. The Panel recommended that the applications be refused.

One interesting aspect of this Panel hearing was the criticism levelled at the Department in its role in supporting Amcor’s applications for clearing. Amcor, prior to applying to the Shires had presented its proposal to DNRE as a referral authority and included the results of this survey as part of its application. The original Amcor proposal was to clear 3,069 hectares. The 1,955 hectares which Amcor applied for permits to clear with the Shires, was identified by the department as ‘containing common and well represented vegetation communities on which it felt there would be no constraints under the Planning Scheme to the development of hardwood plantations’.[97] The panel’s report does not speak favourably of this survey, calling it ‘cursory and inadequate’.[98] The survey was criticised for failing to undertake detailed quadrate assessments of fauna and flora and failing to list known endangered species recorded on the database used by the department on the inspections sheets. The panel emphasised that this was the largest single proposal to clear native vegetation since the controls were introduced and therefore warranted ‘a more thorough investigation and assessment’. They concluded that ‘the DNRE survey cannot be relied upon as a basis for supporting the applications’.[99]

The department were also brought to task for misunderstanding the spirit and rulings of the Native Vegetation Retention controls and plantation establishment guidelines in the Planning Scheme. The report pointed out that the Department’s own Planning Guidelines for Native Vegetation Retention Controls state: ‘The fundamental policy is that native vegetation is to be protected and conserved. The starting position should be that all native vegetation is valuable’.[100] The report also pointed out that the Planning Scheme, encourages ‘softwood and hardwood plantation establishment on predominantly cleared land’.[101]

The report went further and commented that DNRE, Amcor and the Councils ‘have concentrated on the desirability of establishing new eucalypt plantations as part of the big picture for timber production in terms of Amcor’s strategic plan to be a world competitive supplier of forest produce to domestic and export markets and to be able to supply sufficient pulp wood for its new paper machine at the Maryvale Mill with an increased percentage coming from intensively managed plantations’.[102] The emphasis on supply to industry over environmental considerations was of course nothing new in the Strzeleckis.

One would expect that after this detailed report was released that would be the end of the story. However, the Planning Minister chose to overule the Panel’s recommendations. FOGB lobbied the Minister for the Environment, Marie Tehan and the department against the decision. They were told to take it up with the local shires, ‘who in turn did nothing’.[103] The Lake Wellington Rivers Authority (LWRA), however, began to examine the issue, expressing concern at current plantation harvesting in the Strzeleckis.[104] APP began to bulldoze tracks and prepare for the clearing.

In March 1997 Friends of the Gippsland Bush were asked to enter into negotiations with APP about the clearings. FOGB suddenly found itself in a dilemma. Abandoned by the authorities employed to protect the environment and a Ministerial decision that did not seem just given the recommendations in the report, they feared the worse. They decided to negotiate with APP. ‘An eight point agreement between FOGB and APP was signed on 17 March 1997 on the basis that sufficient commitment was being offered from both parties for the commencement of communications and consultation at local level’.[105] This agreement was ratified by a memorandum of understanding between APP and Friends of Strzelecki Inc. (FOSIC). The agreement included a 25 degree slope limit for harvesting; and the requirement that an independent environmental consultant assess habitat protection on a coupe by coupe basis. This would ensure that a consultant and LWRA would assess the flora and fauna values of each coupe, and assess water quality and erosion controls. Some members of the group, however, were unsure of these negotiations and the agreement, and the group split. On July 19 a public rally of 350 people in Traralgon was held to protest against the proposed clearing.

By August 1997, the negotiations between FOGB and APP saw 322 hectares of the original 1,995 hectares proposed for clearing set aside for permanent retirement as native bush. Skipping ahead, by June 1998, complete retention of native vegetation was achieved for 23 of the proposed coupes. Eventually , the agreement protected approximately 85% of the area Amcor had proposed to clear, 1750 hectares. [106]

Strzelecki communities were unprepared for the next bombshell. In 1997, they became aware that for the past four years, 40,000 hectares of the Strzelecki State Forest had been vested in a state owned enterprise called the Victorian Plantations Corportation. This vesting had taken place in 1993 without the public knowing. This news was very disconcerting as it meant that privatisation was on the cards. It also seemed that the Strzelecki forest was being viewed as nothing but a wood factory. The public had been worried for decades over forest management in the Strzelecki State Forest— the conversion of public forest into pine plantation; the leasing of over 8,000 hectares to Amcor for plantation purposes and the native forest clearfelling which had been occurring for decades. A large swathe of the Strzelecki forests was already privately owned by Amcor and managed intensively for wood production. A sizable chunk of the public land was already leased to Amcor. Now 40,000 hectares had been corporatised and was heading for privatisation. This 40,000 hectares included 27,000 hectares of Wet Forest, Cool Temperate Forest, young biodiverse forest, regenerated logging coupes and hardwood reforestation in the Strzelecki State Forest in this new corporation.

In Gippsland and state wide there was little media attention given to this new state owned enterprise, despite the amount of public land involved. The VPC was given management of 167,921 hectares of public land across the state. Only 115,000 hectares of this was plantation. In the Strzeleckis, 40,000 hectares of land was vested in the VPC. This included 13,000 of pine plantations, and a supposed 7,000 hectares of hardwood plantation. This 7,000 hectares would become extremely controversial over the following years. Of the 53,000 hectares of non-plantation land vested in the VPC, more than 20,000 hectares was native forest in the Strzelecki State Forest.

It was logging in the Gunyah/Mt. Fatigue area, (once again) which alerted local communities to these changes. In 1997, the VPC undertook a major logging operation in the headwaters of the Franklin River catchment—a series of coupes which spread from the Gunyah Gunyah Rainforest Reserve to No Name Track, approximately six kilometres further south. This was the same part of the forest which had caused community outrage in the 1970s when the department logged the forest. It was also part of the original Gunyah Timber Reserve, never alienated from the Crown, never cleared and classified as a site of botanical significance in 1984. The logging of the Gunyah forest again provoked an angry reaction and acted as the catalyst for another widespread campaign to protect Strzelecki forests.

These coupes were discovered by Suzie Zent and Elaina Fraser who were visiting the Gunyah rainforest. The devastation they witnessed was relayed to Friends of the Gippsland Bush in Winter 1997 who then alerted the South Gippsland Conservation Society, that ‘the VPC was not adhering to the 1996 Code of Forest Practice.’[107] The SGCS informed the Shire of South Gippsland, the Opposition Spokesperson for the Environment, and the department in Traralgon. The Shire was ‘not aware of its responsibility in this matter until John Gunson, a member of the group, alerted council employees’.[108] Friends of the Gippsland Bush, who had been monitoring logging operations on Australian Paper Plantations Land began documenting the logging undertaken by VPC. In the FOGB newsletter, in Spring 1997, the group reported that ‘members have been working with SGCS and other interested parties in an effort to prevent breaches of the Code of Forest Practices... in the Gunyah Gunyah area. The planned privatisation of all forest areas within the Strzeleckis is of great concern to residents, conservationists and tourist operators. This will be an ongoing and difficult battle’.[109]

It was from the Winter of 1997, that I became involved in this episode of the Strzelecki forest story. One morning in June, Kim Devenish and myself met an ex-student of mine in Foster. We admired his new baby, and then out of the blue, he said, ‘There’s been a lot of logging in the hills. Will you come and look?’ We answered, yes, and since that visit have been collecting information, writing letters and proposals, taking bureaucrats and politicians into the hills, meeting residents and conservation groups with an interest in the Strzeleckis. Campaigning, I suppose.

The Toora-Gunyah road is a scenic drive from Toora into the Strzelecki Ranges. It passes through the cleared foothills, offering views across Corner Inlet to Wilsons Promontory, and climbs higher entering the Messmate and Peppermint forests at the start of the State Forest on Mt. Fatigue. The road follows the ridge, the Agnes catchment on your right and the Franklin on your left. As you ascend the forest becomes dominated by towering Mountain Ash and steep gullies of treeferns, the road continuing towards the Gunyah reserve where the Myrtle Beech cross the ridge road.

The visit on that occasion in winter 1997, though, was not to enjoy the scenery, but to inspect the hidden clear fells along the way. During this logging operation, 1970s regrowth, 1914 regrowth and huge old growth, Myrtle Beech, Blackwood and associated understorey species were logged. New tracks had been made to access wood. Coupes ran across ridges and down gullies, leaving little vegetation in the drainage lines. Clearing had even taken place in the Gunyah Gunyah Rainforest reserve. The coupes were ugly as they always are. Rain had set in turning the area into a muddy, smoldering mess. Uprooted treeferns lay all over the place. Freshly cut Myrtle Beech and Blackwood stumps were apparent in the gullies. We stood in slippery mud, amongst blackened trunks 15 feet in diameter feeling, surrounded by debris and feeling despondent.

Some months later, it became clear that the Victorian Plantations Corporation considered the area to be part of their plantation holdings. The coupes were replanted with Shining Gum, not an indigenous species. An area of the forest which had escaped land clearance a century before, which had been classified of botanical and zoological significance, was part of an original reserve and was earmarked for further reservation by the Land Conservation Council was clearfelled and converted to plantation in the 1990s.

Information began to disseminate throughout South Gippsland, fuelling a widespread campaign to protect the Strzelecki State Forest. There was an overwhelming fear that the Government meant to sell the assets of the Victorian Plantations Corporation to private interests. Over the coming months, groups and individuals from around the region came together to oppose the privatisation, propose a large National park in the forest, and argue with the Government over the vesting process, the lack of public consultation, the over-utilization of the forest, and the threats to biodiversity, water, tourism and the public’s sense of ownership of the forest. Local communities saw the forest as their own; they endow it with meaning through stories, history and memories, their reaction to this secretive vesting process was one of anger and distress.[110]

The local media were interested in the story of the change of management of the forest and the logging practices. Articles began to appear discussing the previously unknown Victorian Plantations Corporation. In July, the Foster Mirror ran an article ‘Logging Action Unpopular’, describing the concerns about the logging of old growth and rainforest in the Franklin River catchment.[111]

It became clear to Kim and myself that no one could or would answer even the simplest of our questions regarding the vesting of the forest. Telephone conversations with some Departmental staff who had moved sideways into the VPC were uninformative to say the least. Mr. Manderson, ex-Department, now VPC, said that we could ask to see maps and plans, but that the VPC was not bound to release them.[112] These early telephone conversations with VPC staff gave us the sense that our interest in this public forest was not welcomed. Now that the forest was vested in the VPC we should mind our own business. Attempting to speak with Mrs. Tehan, the Environment Minister, was proving impossible. These attitudes escalated our interest. We began to delve and research, sifting and distilling fragments of information from departmental documents and local histories. We checked available maps and statistics, and took walks and drives through the forest. This resulted in the publication, Strzelecki Blues: Mucking Around with a State Forest in October 1997.

Strzelecki Blues gave a brief history of the Strzelecki Ranges and its management by the Department. The issue of claiming regenerated logging coupes and reforestation as plantation was discussed. It was interesting that from our research we had reached the same conclusion (without having read these local accounts at the time), that Councillor Honey had expressed in 1986 and Phylliss Kerr in 1979—that the Department had been mismanaging the native forest under its jurisdiction and misusing the reforestation scheme to reforest areas which had no need of it. Strzelecki Blues raised concerns about the recent vesting of the forest in the VPC— both the environmental effects and the effect on the community in losing custody of a public forest. It pleaded for a stop to further plans to privatise the forest until the reserve system was improved, the area assessed and public consultation had taken place. To our surprise, this booklet was in high demand throughout Gippsland and beyond— ordered by school libraries, conservation and community groups and bookstores.

In late 1997, the then Opposition environment spokesperson, Sherryl Garbutt raised concerns about the secrecy of the privatisation and her inability to obtain details under freedom of information. She raised concerns about public access to camps, lookouts, native bush and tracks. “It is very disturbing that the Government is so determined to cover up what they are doing,” she said regarding the sale of the assets of the VPC.[113]

By this time conservation groups in Melbourne were more aware of the issues involved in the privatisation of the Strzelecki State Forest, and the growing opposition to the plan by local communities. In December 1997 Friends of the Earth ran an article, The Great Forest Sell Off about the impending privatisation. The article discussed the problems that local councils faced being ‘ill equipped and under resourced to watch over small logging companies, let alone logging corporations’.[114] This was in response to the situation created by the State Government allowing the lands vested with the Victorian Plantations Corporation to be treated as private land in regard to The Code of Forest Practices. Local councils were therefore responsible for approving coupe plans and monitoring the Code over vast areas of state forest. This article also discussed the environmental problems associated with plantation forestry in Australia, such as, plantations being established after clearing native vegetation, being established on steep slopes, the use of fertilizers and toxic chemicals and effects on the water table stream flows.[115]

Environment Victoria ran a front page story ‘Victoria’s State Plantations—Corporatised, Vested and on the Verge of being Privatised’. The story outlined some of the concerns that Strzelecki communities had about the plan: the fact that approximately 27,000 hectares of native forest was included in the vested land in the Strzelecki Ranges; the classification of approximately 7,000 hectares of the forest, which had been logged previously or was part of the Strzelecki hardwood reforestation scheme as eucalypt plantation; the lack of conservation reserves in the Strzelecki State Forest and fears that privatisation was imminent.[116]

In March 1998, a double page spread, ‘Look what’s happening to our forest!’ appeared in the Foster Mirror. Journalist, Carole Williams gave a history of the Great Forest of South Gippsland and its value to the local community. ‘Many locals know (the forest) well and love to visit its cool, green depths, where lyrebirds sing and you can walk inside a tree through its hollowed doorway’. The article raised concerns about the loss of tourism potential, threats to catchment values and interviewed the Minister, Marie Tehan, who, when asked whether she was aware that the privatisation would mean that all the land surrounding the Gunyah Reserve and Tarra-Bulga Park would be privately controlled, replied that, ‘she wasn’t familiar with the situation’.[117] The vesting of forest land in the VPC and pending privatisation was described as ‘the state’s best kept secret, albeit a furtive one’.[118]

There was certainly cause for concern. Regrowth forest, rainforest, remnant old growth, sites of botanical and zoological significance identified in the early 1980s and sensitive environmental areas had been vested inappropriately in the corporation. The Department had failed to implement earlier recommendations to incorporate sites of significance within an integrated reserve system and the existing reserves were small and scattered. [119] Areas, like the Gunyah forest identified as a site of botanical significance had been logged and planted with exotics by the VPC. Reserves amounted to a mere 5,000 hectares. Indeed, Australian Paper Plantations leased more of the Strzelecki State Forest than was in reserve—8.600 hectares. Furthermore, it was becoming clear that the claimed hardwood plantations were the areas which the Department had either logged and regenerated as native forest (as happens across the state) or were part of the reforestation scheme to restore forest. VPC staff claimed they were entitled to all trees under 37 years of age, as if all young trees in the Strzeleckis were plantation.[120]

This reclassification of forest areas as timber plantations ran counter to the promises by the timber industry and the Department that once an area of forest is cut, it will be returned to more or less a natural state, with or without human assistance. It also was a subversion of the hardwood reforestation scheme, which has as its aim, the restoration of the original forest structure. Had the Department forgotten that in 1990, only three years prior to the vesting process, at public meetings in Foster and Mt. Best, they had stressed that the Department was not establishing plantations? The reclassification also flaunted the Timber Industry Strategy’s directive in the mid 1980s to stop the practice of harvesting native forest and converting to plantation on public land. This recommendation was enshrined in the ‘Timber Industry Strategy Government Statement, 1986’, which stated, ‘Native forest values will be safeguarded as new pine and hardwood plantations are established on cleared land’.[121] Yet, since the mid 1980s approximately 100 ha. of native forest had been logged each year in the Strzelecki State Forest, and yet these areas were now being claimed as plantation.[122] It was especially ironic given that a South Gippsland conservation group, the Yarram & District Conservation Group had initiated the call for the Timber Industry Inquiry, from which this directive sprang.

Many of the efforts by conservation groups and individuals to improve the management of the Strzelecki State Forest were undermined by this arrangement. After years of campaigning against the conversion of native forest into pine plantations, the change in status meant that Mountain Ash forest, under the classification ‘plantation’, could be harvested outside of the 80-120 years minimum rotation rate (if at all) and this time could be planted with exotics, even pine. The Victorian Plantations Corporation planned to log hardwood on a 25-30 year rotation rate. Remnant old growth, mature regrowth and habitat trees were being felled.[123] Regrowth and native forest reforestation was being clearfelled and replanted with exotics. If the establishment of plantations were to ease pressure on native forest, then the Strzelecki State Forest was not benefiting. Clearfelling is known to have detrimental effects on biodiversity, water quality and production, soil, and scenic values— and in the Strzeleckis it was on the increase.[124] A legislative framework was being devised that would allow the integrity of the native forest to be continually fragmented and degraded from the consequences of relabelling young biodiverse forest as plantation.

It is necessary to put this controversial 7,000 hectares of supposed hardwood plantation into perspective. 40,000 hectares of public land in the Strzeleckis was vested in the VPC. The 13,000 hectares of softwood plantations occur around the periphery of the state forest, with a few small exceptions. Perhaps a few thousand hectares of native forest occurs in amongst these softwood plantations. This leaves about 24,000 hectares of native forest, the bulk of which occurs in a continuous block throughout the upper reaches of the eastern ranges, with some exceptions. Part of this 24,000 hectares is the 7,000 hectares in question, scattered throughout the forest blocks. In order to vest the 7,000 hectares, the bureaucrats included approximately 17,000 hectares of native forest occupying the same forest blocks. When questioned about this, the Department talked about ‘squaring off boundaries’[125] and how the native forest was in amongst plantations, giving the impression that plantations occupied the bulk of the area. This blurred and distorted picture was repeated by some politicians. In reply to a letter from a concerned resident of the Strzeleckis, Mr. Phillip Davis remarked that, ‘There are patches of native forest throughout the VPC vested lands...’[126].

This depiction of the area as mainly plantation had many serious repercussions. It meant that a large slab of the Strzeleckis was removed from public control and management. Later, it resulted in the exclusion of the large block of native forest in the Eastern Strzeleckis from the Gippsland RFA process and the review of sustainable yield in state forests. It led to a perception, even amongst some green groups, that the Strzeleckis were a prime source of plantation hardwood, further undermining the efforts of local campaigns.[127] That the 7,000 hectares included native forest and even sites of botanical significance in an under-reserved and depleted bioregion, makes the scenario even more tragic.

A sense of loss, anger and general uneasiness pervaded the local community as the full implications of the vesting of the Strzelecki State Forest in the Victorian Plantations Corporation came into focus. Individuals and groups wrote letters to the papers, to the Minister and local members of Parliament, indicating their concerns with the lack of conservation principles in the Strzeleckis, their opposition to privatisation and threats to landscape and aesthetic values and wildlife habitat.[128] Fears were raised about the 20 year plan to harvest 100,000m³ of hardwood sawlog from the Strzeleckis annually, to meet a commitment to Planthard, a large, new mill in Morwell.[129] Letters to the Editor expressed concerns about our watersheds being in private hands and the closure of public roads in the forest. Treating the vested lands as if private raised concerns about public consultation in forest management plans and other state forest procedures.[130] Photographic evidence of breaches to the Code of Forest Practices was collected by individuals and groups and presented to the Department and the Government. Locals visited personal ‘big trees’ and places in the forest to check if they were still there; angry at the sudden appearance of signs ‘Victorian Plantations Corporation’ perched above steep, fern filled gullies. Kim Devenish set up a website dedicated to the Strzelecki State Forest. Photographs of the bush and logging catastrophes, essays on various topics, and Strzelecki Blues, were made available and the website continued to grow as events unfolded. Local communities discussed the issues and kept in touch. The campaign was not organised or run by any particular group—it just grew under its own momentum fuelled by the fear of what was planned for this much loved forest.

Suzie Zent, member of Friends of the Gippsland Bush and Elaina Fraser, a field naturalist, continued to survey and map the Strzelecki forests. After their initial work in the College Creek catchment, in 1997, the Agnes and Franklin upper catchments were systematically walked and surveyed for old growth, rainforest, significant species, logging damage and Myrtle wilt. In 1997 Ms. Fraser identified the rare forked fern, Tmesipteris elongata, in the Agnes Catchment.[131] Ms. Fraser’s reports were disseminated to other groups, botanists and conservationists for follow up work.

Ms Susan Davies, MLA for Gippsland West had become interested in the Strzelecki forest issues in late 1997, after receiving a copy of Strzelecki Blues. In early November 1997 Ms. Davies visited the Strzelecki forest with Kim Devenish and myself. It was the same day that a concerned resident had arranged to fly over the Strzeleckis and document the rash of logging coupes from the air. We waved at the plane as we ate our picnic at Gunyah junction. Ms. Davies issued many press releases from her office as various events unfolded. Press releases condemned the Government’s plans to privatise public forest, criticized the Government for attempting to pass off the Strzelecki forests as plantation land and the lack of community consultation.[132]

In early 1998 articles heralding the privatisation of the state’s plantations appeared in the Melbourne media. The concerns emanating from the Strzeleckis began to filter through. The Sun Herald concluded one article about the impending privatisation, ‘But conservationists claim at least 20,000 ha. of the area, in the Strzelecki Ranges, is native bush that is home to the tiger quoll and other rare species’.[133] Yes, the Strzeleckis had cracked a mention in a Melbourne newspaper!

Susan Davies lobbied the State Government, to remove areas of the Strzelecki forests from the planned sell-off. She wrote personal letters to Alan Stockdale, Treasurer of Victoria, pleading for a review of the Strzelecki forests and which areas were to be included in the privatisation. In a press release she says, “I would like to see more of this forest put into proper reserve, to protect the water catchments and to give us a reminder of our heritage.”[134]

In early 1998, Victoria’s Biodiversity Directions in Management was released by the Department. This document clarified the Government’s position on biodiversity issues and the use of biogeographical regions as a framework for monitoring and response. Bioregions divide the state into distinct areas based on natural landscape features, geography, climate and topology. In many ways it was a useful and farsighted document, but with one major flaw, as far as the Strzeleckis were concerned. The Strzelecki Ranges had been included with the South Eastern Highlands bioregion, despite it being a separate mountain range and having always been considered a distinct geological and botanical region in major scientific studies.[135] Later actions by various scientists, botanists and local residents were to result in the Strzelecki Ranges being declared as a separate bioregion of its own.

A bill to amend the VPC Act was scheduled for the last sitting of Parliament in April 1998. This amendment would pave the way for the full privatisation of the assets of the Victorian Plantations Corporation. Marie Tehan, Minister for Conservation had refused to meet with a delegation comprised of local residents and members of the Friends of Gippsland Bush and the South Gippsland Conservation Society. As the day approached, locals felt that their grievances were not being addressed and a demonstration on the steps of Parliament House was organised in haste for April 28 1998.

‘With only a few days notice people from Gippsland considered the issue of such importance that 70 locals attended the protest scene...’ the Foster Mirror r reported.[136] The residents included senior citizens, families and were again, as ‘fine a gathering of guys and girls as one would meet in a day’s march’ and ‘a typical mum, dad and the kids sort of crowd’, as Ellen Lyndon described a group of concerned South Gippsland residents two decades before. The Gippslanders stayed all day, sitting on chairs, brought along for the long haul, drinkingtea,talking to passersby and explaining the situation. Banners opposed the privatisation of the Strzeleckis and brochures called for a 30,000 ha. National Park to be established in the Strzelecki State Forest. A photographic display showed the beauty of the forest‑waterfalls, rainforest and Mountain Ash; other photographs showed logging destruction and aerial shots of recent devastation. Some politicians scurried by; some came out to talk. Ms Garbutt, the Shadow Environment Minister and Susan Davies addressed the meeting.

Photo by Kim Devenish

The Bill was debated in Parliament the following night and specific issues concerning the Strzelecki forests were aired. Sherryl Garbutt highlighted community concerns about road closures, loss of recreation and conservation areas, the loss of native forest. threats to tourism, and the effects on water and soil conservation of plantation forestry. Ms. Garbutt also questioned the cost/benefits of this shift of public assets, and argued strongly against the haste with which the Government was pursuing these ends without adequate public consultation and information.[137] Five politicians argued that the Bill be deferred until community and environmental concerns had been resolved and inappropriate lands divested from the corporation. Susan Davies, Gippsland West gave an account of the lack of Government interest in community concerns, the incomplete mapping of the Strzelecki State Forest, the inappropriate timing of the Bill ( the RFA process for Gippsland was about to begin) and the environmental problems inherent in treating VPC vested land as if 'private'.

The Government, despite this lengthy debate passed the amendment bill, fifty voting with the Government, 27 against.[138] That 27 had voted against the Bill, was evidence of a growing awareness of the potential problems with the privatisation of the Victorian Plantations Corporation. Since 1993, all the Bills concerning the VPC had passed through the parliament more or less unanimously. Stockdale defended the Bill, saying that amendments could be made between Houses and further areas could be removed from the sell off.

Back in South Gippsland, the Victorian Plantations Corporation engaged in a public relation exercise by addressing the South Gippsland Shire Council. The exercise to allay concerns resulted in the headlines, ‘Shire admits Forest Confusion’; VPC Speaker Addresses Council—but some issues still unclear; and ‘Forest confusion reigns despite VPC assurances’.[139] Following this, in the tradition of Shire Councils supporting community pressure for reserves in the Strzelecki forests, the Shire of South Gippsland resolved to support the creation of a state park in the Gunyah/Mount Fatigue area. Cr. Peter Western pointed out that the’ term plantation could be fiddled with’; and that the Strzeleckis were ‘an extremely valuable resource in terms of water, ecology and tourism. It’s so valuable we can’t afford to lose it, and what we need is a linked reserve through the Eastern Strzeleckis’.[140] The Shire passed a motion to ask the Minister for Conservation to delay implementation of the VPC Act Amendment Bill ‘until public consultation had been held with the people of South Gippsland’.[141]

Meanwhile, consultation for the Gippsland Regional Forest Agreement commenced. The Regional Forest Agreements (RFA), in theory, allowed for public consultation on the future management and use of public forests. One goal of the process was to ensure Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative Reserve Systems based on bioregions to provide for the long term, ecologically sustainable management of forests. In 1995, Deferred Forest Areas (DFAs) were declared, temporarily reserving forest from logging pending the outcome of public consultations and flora and fauna assessments to determine the reserve system. In Gippsland, the entire Strzelecki State Forest (including the areas vested in the VPC, but minus the pine plantation areas) was part of the Deferred Forest Areas.[142] Government statements announced, “The DFAs contain those forest areas needed for our world class forest reserve system and were selected on the basis of the Commonwealth’s reserve criteria which was lauded by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.”[143] However, this rhetoric ran counter to the large scale clearfelling occurring in the Strzelecki forest in areas contained within the DFA.

Complaints were made to the Commonwealth and the State Government concerning the logging within the Deferred Forest Area in April 1998 in coupes along the Toora-Gunyah Road at No Name Track, No name Track 2, Redhill Track, Evans Track, and Stronachs Road; coupes off the Grand Ridge Road at Lewis Track, Contorta Track, Hatchery Road and Jacksons Track; and at Johnsons Hill and English’s Corner. Many of the areas being logged were also within sites of botanical significance (at Gunyah and Morwell West Branch) as well as being within a DFA.[144]

In reply, Minister Tehan wrote that a revised Interim Forest Agreement (IFA) signed by Jeff Kennett and Paul Keating in 1996, ‘specifically excludes areas identified as plantations, including those areas vested in the Victorian Plantations Corporation in the Strzelecki Ranges’.[145] Environment Australia, the bureaucracy representing the Commonwealth in the process insisted that the Interim Forest Agreement (IFA) ‘applies to all native forest but does not apply to plantations’,[146] and other politicians indicated that the local community could recommend areas in the Strzelecki Ranges for reservation during the process.[147] Confusion reigned. Meanwhile, the forest was being logged. Forest areas, which had been recommended for reservation many times by many groups, were now being destroyed prior to assessment. VPC logging was pre-empting the results of a public process, an echo of the Departmental logging of Macks Creek Valley during the Land Conservation Council public process in the early 1980s.

Given the vesting of the forest, the logging at Gunyah and the recent passing of the VPC Amendment Bill, the relationship between the local community and the RFA personnel was strained to say the least. The first public meeting in Yarram on May 18 1998 did nothing to dispel the growing disquiet. Members of the public hoping to nominate significant areas in the forest for reserve or heritage status were confronted by a map at the front of the room showed the entire Strzelecki State Forest coloured purple —indicating it was earmarked for plantation development. Even the Gunyah Gunyah Rainforest Reserve was shown as available for timber harvesting. Mr. Miles, RFA facilitator, explained ‘that work on the maps of the Gippsland RFA were still only in preliminary stages....’ and suggested that ‘much work was yet to be done determining what was plantation, regrowth forest, old growth forest....’[148] This supported the local groups contention that mapping of the areas to be privatised was not complete and that the privatisation bill was hasty, sloppy and dangerous. There was an overwhelming sense of unfairness expressed in regard to the Strzelecki State Forest being written off as a plantation area and anger expressed at past and present management practices in this significant State Forest.[149] The Sentinel Times reported that over 70 local residents and representatives of community organizations demanded ‘increased protection for remnant Strzelecki forests’.[150] Despite the air of uncertainty about the Strzeleckis forests status in the process, conservation and community groups and individuals continued to prepare submissions, write letters, identify significant places and attend workshops.

Susan Davies continued to pressure the State Government to review the lands highlighted for privatisation. She reminded the State Treasurer Alan Stockdale, that he had claimed that lands could be excluded from the privatisation and had admitted that, ‘he was unaware that native forest had been included in the area to be privatised’.[151] She criticized the government’s vesting of the land, saying, ‘With a stroke of a pen in 1993, land which was deemed public land was deemed to be treated as private land. Since then, with another stroke of the pen, the Victorian Plantations Corporation has begun referring to any forest which has been logged at some stage as plantation’. Commenting on the field trip to the Strzelecki State Forest by the Regional Forest Agreements taskforce, Ms Davies said, ‘an attempt has been made by the Victorian Government to persuade the forest task force from Canberra that all land vested in the VPC was plantation or ‘worthless scrub’. This was inaccurate and the advisors had now seen this with their own eyes.”[152]

In July, Sherryl Garbutt, Shadow Minister for the Environment, visited the Strzelecki forests with members of Friends of the Gippsland Bush and Kim Devenish. The Strzeleckis put on a rare show. Snow fell, carpeting the forest floor; treeferns became white umbrellas. WIN TV, went along and captured the spectacle for the evening news. Meeting with the press in Boolarra, Ms Garbutt spoke about the privatisation of the Strzelecki forests, saying that the Kennett Government had ‘totally ignored public access and environmental issues in the lead up to the legislation to privatise the Victorian Plantations Corporation’. She said that they had not discussed ‘the fate of native vegetation on VPC land, the possibility of extending conservation reserves, or the right of the public to use land for recreation’. [153] Ms Garbutt continued, ‘The only brief mention of the environment was four paragraphs on the problem of how to get around Land Conservation Council recommendations... The public interest and the environment have been pushed aside in the government’s rush to sell off our assets’.[154]

At the demonstration outside Parliament in April 1998, there was a call for a 30,000 hectare reserve in the Strzelecki State Forest. In July, A Proposal for a 30,000 hectare National Park in the Strzelecki State Forest was launched in Foster. The proposal was written by local residents and the printing was funded by the South Gippsland Conservation Society.[155] Many locals rallied out the front of the Foster post office for the launch which included a mass mail-out of the proposal to politicians, bureaucrats and environment groups.

The Proposal argued that the small, scattered reserves in the Strzelecki Ranges were not sufficient for the maintenance and enhancement of biodiversity and were not viable in the long term— concerns voiced by conservation groups during the Land Conservation Council process. The proposal described the impressive array of flora and fauna of the forest, endangered and threatened species, and demonstrated the value of linking several small reserves into a consolidated protected bushland, to provide better security for water catchments, the environment and the flora and fauna of the Strzeleckis. Present reserves amounted to 5,000 hectares and the proposal argued for a further 25,000 hectares to be reserved from the public land in the Ranges, with a major consolidated reserve linking Turtons Creek reserve, Morwell River West Branch, Franklin and Agnes Upper catchments, the Rytons area, Middle Creek, College Creek, Tarra Bulga Park and land to the north and east of the Tarra Bulga park. Final boundaries were to be negotiated with other stakeholders. Adoption of the park proposal would bring the amount of public land reserved in the Strzelecki Ranges Bioregion from below 2% to 10%.

The Proposal seemed to awaken a latent and sympathetic chord throughout the Strzelecki Ranges region. From Hallston to Yarram, and the Latrobe Valley to Wonthaggi, there was a swift and emotional outpouring of support for the National Park proposal. [156] The public had witnessed decades of mistreatment of this forest. They had argued with the Department over the establishment of Pine plantations; watched flora and fauna take a back seat to the supply of wood to industry and seen conservation recommendations unheeded. Now the forest was to be managed by private interests and areas previously logged and native forest restoration work was to be labelled plantation and be subject to an extreme form of timber production. The changes wrought on the forest by the Victorian Plantations Corporation Act were viewed by many as an act of greed. The overwhelming support for the National Park proposal demonstrated the community’s belief that the most effective way to protect and conserve the values of the forest in perpetuity was to place it in a large formal reserve. A National Park with its legally binding protection was perhaps the only way to save the forest from further exploitation and degradation.

Letters of support and public acclamations for the proposal were received from the Society for Growing Australian Plants, the South Gippsland Conservation Society, the Mt. Best Concerned Residents Association, the Latrobe Valley Field Naturalists, Environment Victoria, Greening Australia, the Strzelecki Hills Branch ALP, Wonthaggi/Bass Branch ALP, Friends of the Gippsland Bush; Greens Party, the Victorian National Parks Association and many individual.

Susan Davies, the member for Gippsland West pledged support for the National Park proposal and her office organized a petition asking the Government to implement the establishment of the park. Over five thousand signatures were collected in two weeks. They were collected quickly because there were rumours that the Government was going to sell the VPC by the end of the year. These were tabled in the Autumn session of Parliament. Ms. Davies continued to lobby the Government to delay any further sale negotiations until maps were completed and scrutinized, reserves buffered and linked; and significant areas removed from the sale. Soon, petition signatures rose to 7,000.[157]

The South Gippsland Shire reiterated its support for the creation of a significant national park in the Strzelecki Ranges and sent a delegation to Alan Stockdale to press for a national or state park to preserve the native forest in the Strzeleckis. [158] On August 26th, Peter McGauran, Gippsland’s federal member and Peter Ryan, state member for South Gippsland visited the forest with Kim Devenish and myself. In an interview with The Mirror Peter Ryan declared that it was too late for a national park.[159] This did not stop the campaign. Indeed it seemed to spur it on. Press articles from Susan Davies regarding the growing support via the petition were published, letters of support were published, and the South Gippsland Shire Council refuted Peter Ryan’s claim saying ‘It’s not too late for a Strzelecki Park’.[160] The La Trobe Shire began a process to have high conservation areas in the Strzeleckis removed from the VPC tenure.[161] The Business Age ran an article about the national park proposal, called ‘Plan to balance Strzelecki timber and tourism’.[162] A week later, the Age printed an article about the Toora-Gunyah Road coupes, the cutting of Myrtle Beech trees and the park proposal.[163]

Throughout 1998, many community initiated public meetings were held to discuss the Strzeleckis. Meetings took place at Mirboo North, Gormandale and Monash University, Churchill. The Mt. Best Concerned Residents Group was revived at a meeting on May 24th, in response to the Strzelecki issues and the Latrobe Valley Field Naturalists held a meeting to hear about the Strzelecki forest. In July 1998, the South Gippsland Conservation Society held a ‘Crisis in Strzeleckis’ meeting. The meeting was first addressed by Kim Devenish and myself. We outlined the national park proposal and the issue of native forest being incorrectly classified as plantation. Theo Morsinck, from Friends of the Gippsland Bush, discussed the group’s Eight Point Agreement with Amcor and the group’s monitoring of logging coupes.

The Strzelecki issues received airing in conservation group newsletters. President of the SGCS, Noel Maud wrote in the Spring newsletter, ‘1998 is shaping up as one of those crucial years for environmental struggles and so I suppose it should not come as a surprise that the Battle of the Bush has been engaged at this time. I refer of course to the fight to drag from the hands of the loggers and woodchippers the core of our last remnant of the Great Gippsland Forest. It is a shocking indictment of our governments that for the past 100 years the Eastern Strzeleckis have been allowed to remain in a policy limbo, with opportunist industries like Amcor, allowed to progressively chip away at what should be a priceless natural asset.’[164] The September issue of Environment Victoria’s newsletter featured the national park proposal. On December 13, 3CR’s Earth Matters featured a story on the Strzelecki forests issues.

Despite obvious community disquiet about the Strzelecki sell-off and the call for a large National Park, the Victorian Government continued with plantation and native forest privatisation. Industry was taking priority over conservation, again. The Minister for Conservation, Mrs. Tehan wrote in regard to the national park proposal, ‘A large proportion of the areas you have identified has been vested in the VPC or leased to APP for plantation purposes. The Government is not prepared to change these arrangements and create considerable social and economic uncertainty in the region with respect to industry development’.[165] Amcor had been sent a copy of the proposal, but made no comment about the College Creek area or any other areas within its lease, which had been included as key areas in the proposal.

Throughout 1998, Friends of the Gippsland Bush was involved with many forest management issues, the College Creek issue and the privatisation. They continued to document breaches of the Code of Forest Practices in the Strzeleckis, write reports on methods of monitoring forestry activities and the effects of logging activities on Myrtle Wilt, landslips and soil erosion. The group continued to lobby for the protection of College Creek and made presentations to the Latrobe Council. In June, the Council passed a resolution to prepare a strategy for the protection of the area. [166] On September 28, 1998, FOGB gave a presentation to a Latrobe Council Committee Meeting disputing the Victorian Plantations Corporation ’s plantation areas. Their paper said that ‘the VPC have created a new definition for plantations. This definition does not meet the requirements of the Code; previously published material by DNRE. The CMA and EPA and many certified botanists and the Shadow Minister for the Environment also challenge the definition’.[167]

On November 18, 1998 the Victorian Government announced the sale of the VPC and its 168,000 hectares to Hancock Victorian Plantations Pty Ltd. Hancock Timber Resource Group owned 60% of the investment. The purchase price was $550 million. The sale consisted of a perpetual lease on the forests, the land itself remaining Crown land.[168] Calls for delays and consultation by Shire Councils, Susan Davies and local communities achieved naught. The native forest was included in the package; no land was divested.

There was outrage in the local community that the deal had gone through without any concessions. The Sentinel Times reported, that, ‘South Gippsland conservationists have reacted angrily to the State Government’s Victorian Plantations Corporation sell-off’. John Gunson of the South Gippsland Conservation Society said ‘that the government had no right to alienate public land’.[169] Other headlines included, Anger at forests sell-off (Sentinel 19/11/98); ‘SG residents grieved by sale of Strzelecki forest (Mirror, 25/11/98); Ryan lauds sale of VPC-but not all share his views (Star, 24/11/1998). The mistakes of privatising the Strzeleckis a century before, public opposition and ecological concerns were not heeded. The public forests of the Strzeleckis had been sacrificed, as Susan Davies put it for, ‘for 30 pieces of silver’.[170]

Dr. David Bellamy visited the Strzeleckis in December 1998 . The front cover of the Christmas edition of The Mirror showed Dr. Bellamy standing in the Gunyah forest, giving his support for the establishment of a Strzelecki National Park. Beleaguered campaigners were grateful for the blessing of the renowned botanist, who went on to say that the ‘rainforest was of global significance’ and ‘that the current forestry practice was among the poorest management of rainforest I have ever seen’. Dr. Bellamy did not see the privatisation as an obstacle to the creation of a National Park, saying that because, ‘ the upper catchment was critical to the health of streams further down, the new owner of the forests may see it as in everyone’s interests to set aside an area for a national park.’[171] This was a cheering Christmas present for Strzelecki forest campaigners.

Prof. David Bellamy in the Strzeleckis, 1998. Photo by Elizabeth Fleming.

In February 1st and 2nd, 1999, a Senate Inquiry into the Regional Forest Agreements Bill was held in Melbourne. At the Inquiry, South Gippslanders expressed their concerns about the Strzeleckis, particularly the different messages they were receiving from the politicians about the forest’s status in the process. Some politicians were encouraging the Gippsland public to press for reserves through the process, while the State Minister for Conservation was saying vested land would not be considered. The South Gippsland Conservation Society’s submission asked for a ‘moratorium on logging in controversial areas such as the Strzeleckis while a proper scientific review is undertaken’.[172]

On February 3, 1999, Hancock representatives met with members of the South Gippsland Conservation Society and national park proponents. Concerns about the lack of reserves, the misclassification of forest as plantation and other issues were aired. The spokesman, Mr. Henry Whittemore, who was in Australia from Hancocks in Boston, said that the company had monitored Strzelecki Website from the U.S. and were aware of the controversy surrounding the Strzelecki forests.[173] In subsequent press interviews Hancock Victorian Plantations, stated that they would not log native forest, recognised that the definition of plantation was debatable and that mapping needed to be resolved. Mr. Whittimore was also quoted as saying, ‘Hancock would be open to arrangements that would result in remnant bush being protected by an enlarged reserve system’.[174] Throughout the interview Hancock’s representatives stressed the company’s priorities—profits and shareholder obligations.

The South Gippsland Shire Council, aware of community concerns (over the changed management in the Strzeleckis and the support for the national park proposal), voted in February 1999 to ‘convene, resource and chair a working party to identify and propose resolutions to issues involving proposals for future management of the forest.’ Cr. Western said that by working together to protect ‘valuable old and regrowth native trees and to specify which areas are plantation resource...there will be no need for anyone to lie down in front of bulldozers...’ [175] Invitations were sent to Hancock Victorian Plantations; Wellington, Latrobe and South Gippsland Shires; the South Gippsland Conservation Society; Friends of the Gippsland Bush, Kim Devenish and Julie Constable. Technical advice was to be provided by the Department of Natural Resources & Environment and the West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority.[176]

Support for a new park system in the Strzeleckis was not limited to ‘greenies’ and conservation groups. It’s broad appeal was witnessed, when in April 1999, the Gippsland Local Government Network, comprising the Shires of Baw Baw, East Gippsland, Bass Coast, South Gippsland, Cardinia, Wellington and La Trobe signed a memorandum of understanding. The coalition of Shires agreed to support the creation of a ‘major tourism asset in the form of an enlarged park or reserve system in the Strzelecki Ranges’. In the environmental section of the ‘Understanding’, the parties agreed to ‘work with the Strzelecki Working Group to lobby for improved catchment management through setting aside large reserves of the Strzeleckis’. The document also agreed to ‘seek funds for buy back of Hancock timber rights on public land’.[177] This wasn’t a green group seeking a more environmentally beneficial outcome for the Strzeleckis, but a group of Mayors and Councillors, representing the local councils of Gippsland.

Friends of the Gippsland Bush continued to monitor logging operations by APP and HVP. In 1999, they invited Dr. Ealey, an environmental scientist to review logging practices in the Strzeleckis. Dr. Tim Ealey, member of the panel which heard submissions for Revision No. 1 of the Code of Forest Practices, completed a report, Plantation Logging in the Strzeleckis in September 1999. The report claimed that the ‘State Government’s former plantations corporation cleared ecologically sensitive bushland in Gippsland to expand its commercial operations before being privatised’.[178] Dr. Ealey was highly critical of the clearing of bush into buffer areas, bulldozing within the rainforest, logging of Myrtle Beech and logging of native forest in gullies and filter strips. The author also commented, ‘One timber company... has a quota of 100,000m3 of wood per year; this may be difficult to sustain if only plantation trees are logged. In 1997, a staff member from VPC when asked why adequate buffers were not retained on rainforest and roads, stated there would not be enough wood left in the Strzeleckis to log, if they were retained.’[179] This confirmed the community’s fears about this unsustainable commitment. Dr. Ealey emphasized, that ‘in a depleted region such as the Strzeleckis any native bush is valuable. There should be no need to seek for endangered species, to make a case for conservation when the local ecosystem itself is endangered’.[180]

The Foster Mirror reiterated its concerns of two years earlier. ‘Dr. Ealey’s study confirms what the Foster Mirror reported in September 1997 and March 1998 concerning the logging of native forest along the Toora Gunyah Road. The Mirror reported that Stronachs Road, Evans Track, Redhill Track and two unnamed tracks provided evidence of the logging of old growth, 1914 regrowth and rainforest species. The logging affected a large part of the Gunyah forest within a site described as being of botanical significance by CF&L in 1984’. The article continued, ‘all these examples (in report and local knowledge) illustrate the legal uncertainty surrounding HVP’s plantation estate’.[181]

Meanwhile, Hancock Victorian Plantations had been checking their assets. Hardwood plantation areas were assessed by viewing young Mountain Ash from the air and matching these areas with logging history maps. Logging history maps delineate coupes by a dotted line and a date.[182] The problem with this method is that HVP could not distinguish between plantation establishment; native forest regrowth after logging; and reforestation. The Department acknowledged that it had been logging native forest and restoring coupes as forest at the rate of about 100 hectares annually for some decades. The Department had also referred to the hardwood reforestation as native forest restoration, yet they were sold as plantation. Despite the concerns raised about their status of the 7,000 hectares , the company continues to log and treat these areas as plantation sites.

The Woomera Creek catchment near Mt. Fatigue, the area which between 1986 and 1990, the Mt. Best Concerned Residents had campaigned to have protected in a reserve makes an interesting microcosm in regard to this problem of identification. The maps that the Department displayed at the public meetings in Foster in 1989 and Mt. Best in 1990, distinguished between regenerated native forest logging coupes and reforestation. There were no plantation s marked in this catchment at all. The Victorian Plantations Corporation began labelling all these areas as plantation; even the reforestation that took place after 1990, and which the Department had emphasised would not be plantation establishment in Mt. Fatigue Reforestation Plan. HVP have also not distinguished between these different types of forestry interference and at time of writing continue to label these areas as plantation.

In September, the RFA’s Gippsland Comprehensive Regional Assessment was released. In a sad irony, Slender Treeferns photographed in the Strzeleckis graced the front cover, while the document itself offered little protection for the Strzelecki forests.

On September 18, 1999, a state election was held and a new Labor Government was formed. Sherryl Garbutt became the Environment Minister. Prior to the election the Labor Party released the document, Our Natural Assets: Valuing Victoria's natural environment. Perhaps in recognition of the foul play afforded the Strzelecki State Forest during the privatisation, the document stated that, 'The Kennett Government has failed to protect remaining native vegetation in the Strzelecki Ranges. It privatised over 20,000 ha. of native vegetation when it sold the Victorian Plantations Corporation to private interests, and failed to enforce the Code of Forest Practice to protect rainforests, streamside vegetation and other native vegetation from logging.

'Labor will: Ensure full protection of all conservation areas in the Strzelecki Ranges

Negotiate with private landowners to ensure protection of all significant areas of native forest and strictly enforce the Code of Forest Practice.

Refer the Strzelecki Ranges to the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council to examine future opportunities for protection of native forests in the region.'[183]

This acknowledgment of the mistreatment of the forest was much appreciated at the time by those campaigning for a more just outcome in the Strzelecki State Forest and hopes were raised for a resolution to the crisis.

At an RFA meeting in Yarram on November 8, the RFA steering committee announced that the bulk of the Strzeleckis could not be considered for inclusion in the CAR reserve system due to its being leased. Mrs Tehan’s directive that all leased land was exempt from the RFAs had sparked a prolonged argument between the Victorian and Canberran bureaucrats in regard to the Strzelecki issue.[184] The State Government had its way. The public were annoyed by this announcement after making submissions, attending workshops, and promoting the need to create a large reserve in the Strzeleckis . The only good news the RFA bureaucrats could give was that the newly formed Labor Government had promised to refer the Strzelecki forests to the Victorian Environment Assessment Council.

Ecological Vegetation Class mapping for the Gippsland RFA had been progressing and the reforestation of the Strzelecki Ranges had been classified as Wet Forest by departmental botanists.[185] However, when these maps were released they had been altered so that the reforested areas and regeneration after logging fell into the same vegetation class as pine plantation. Complaints were made that botanical assessments were overridden by vested interest land use decisions on maps which should have been free from politics and land tenure classification.[186]

In December 1999, the Strzelecki Working Group commissioned Biosis Research to undertake an independent biological survey of the Hancock leasehold and make recommendations to assist the conservation of biodiversity.

The 21st Century: The campaigns continue...

“I am writing to you on behalf of Mt. Best Concerned Residents Association, to give our wholehearted support to the adoption and implementation of the key recommendations contained in the Study by the Strzelecki Working Group.

Our Association strongly opposed the sell off of the forest and plantations to the north of Mt Best by the previous Government, and then supported the proposal to have a 30,000 ha. National Park declared in the area.

While the present proposal is for a 8,733 ha. Reserve, and is not what we would have preferred, we believe that it is essential that this current proposal by the Strzelecki Working Group should be acted upon with all possible speed, with the longer term aim of protecting the area permanently by creating a National Park in the Strzelecki Ranges.’[187]

In the new year, the Labor State Government, under pressure state-wide from the public criticism of the RFA process, set up an Independent Panel to receive further public submissions from the West and the Gippsland regions. The Gippsland RFA steering Committee first produced a Consultation Paper, which acknowledged that ‘a range of concerns have been raised by communities in South Gippsland about the management of native forest and plantations in the Strzeleckis. These relate to the manner of sale of the plantations, the appropriateness of transfer of public native forest management to private companies and the delineation of the extent of plantations in maps published in the Comprehensive Regional Assessment (CRA) for the Gippsland RFA.’[188]

The Consultation Paper also confirmed the State Government’s commitment to further investigation of the Strzeleckis and full protection of conservation areas.[189]

Groups and individuals took the time to reiterate their concerns about the Strzeleckis and its treatment during the process. The group, Concerned Residents of ‘Sustain the Strzeleckis’, called for secure tenure reserves in the Strzeleckis , stressing that the Strzeleckis, ‘contain the largest and most cohesive area of wet forest in the region’.[190] The Victorian National Parks submission stated, ‘We concur with local groups and individuals on the appalling treatment of the Strzelecki Forest including:

—The multiple promises made by state and federal government letters to canvass parks and reserves in this area as part of the RFA process, now apparently reneged on.

—The depiction of all areas outside of reserves as plantations when this is not the case.

We urge that the opportunity be made to make reservations in this area if at all possible including the currently under-reserved Wet Forest of which significant contiguous areas occur here’.[191]

The Independent Panel Report was released in March 2000. Given that the RFAs had abandoned the Strzeleckis, Strzelecki campaigners didn’t hold out much hope that anything would be fundamentally changed by this additional consultation. However, the Report did summarize the change in status of the Strzelecki State Forest during this public process for determining forest use in Australia and some of the heartfelt effort expended by members of the public in attempting to save the Strzelecki forests.

‘When the national RFA process was initiated the Strzelecki State Forest was included but in 1998 the Victorian Government sold the Victorian Plantations Corporation to a private entity, Hancock Victorian Plantations. In accordance with the National Forest Policy Statement, the area could no longer be considered in establishing the CAR reserve system through the RFA process and this was confirmed in the Consultation Paper.

‘However, despite this the Panel has received numerous submissions, from community groups and individuals, many in great detail, expressing their concern for the flora and fauna of the native forests of the Strzeleckis. A common theme of their submissions is the need for Government intervention to protect the biodiversity values of this unique area.’[192]

Kim Devenish and myself, met with Sherryl Garbutt, Minister for the Environment on February 9, 2000. At the meeting, we outlined the major concerns - the alienation of public native forest; harvesting practices; the reclassification of Mountain Ash regeneration following logging as 'plantation'; the public's grief over the change of status of the Strzelecki State Forest and the community support for a large National Park in the Strzelecki Ranges.

In March 2000, Friends of the Earth’s Native Forest Network organised the printing of 5000 postcards addressed to John Hancock Mutual Live Insurance Company, the parent company of Hancock Timber Resource Group. The photograph on the front showed confronting image of a dead Strzelecki koala ; the text called for habitat protection to ensure the survival of the koala in the Strzeleckis. The card highlighted the ‘local, state and national significance’ of the South Gippsland koala because of its’ high level of genetic variability’. A follow up action occurred in Boston, USA, when activists in North America gathered in front of the John Hancock building and distributed the postcards on September 10, 2000.

Mr. Amis at this time conceived the idea of a Hancock Watch website. The site was facilitated by Green Net, a group established to provide internet support for environmental and social activists. The site incorporated photographs of breaches to the Code of Forest Practices during logging operations, collected by FOGB since 1996 and the fauna and flora survey work compiled by Elaina Fraser and Suzie Zent. Ms. Fraser had collected the data into a report called ‘Rainforests of the Strzeleckis’ and this was used in the botanical pages of the site. The site gives geographical and botanical information on the Strzeleckis , reports on forest management by Hancock Victorian Plantations and information on chemicals used in plantation maintenance. Between January 2002 and September 2002, the site received 120,915 hits and 13,809 visits. The site has given the Strzelecki forests a global profile. Friends of the Earth continue to visit and monitor logging activities in the Strzeleckis and submitted a report to the Gippsland RFA, focusing on poor plantation management by Amcor and HVP.

On September 11 2000 Kim and I met again with the Environment Minister and senior bureaucrats. Again the issues of a large National Park and the reforestation being categorized as plantation were raised. Feedback was slow, but in answer to another letter 17 April 2001, the Executive Director, Forests Service wrote that the Victorian Environment Assessment Council Bill had not yet received passage through parliament and that the Minister ‘has asked the Department to provide advice on alternative approaches’.[193]

Hancock Victorian Plantations received a letter from a student at South Gippsland Secondary School, Foster in the Spring of 2000. The letter asked the company not to cut so much of the Strzelecki forests, described what the forest meant to the locals— its beauty and biodiversity and how long it takes to regrow every time it is cut. He wrote about the sadness of Mountain Ash being cut and replaced by non- local trees. The letter ended by saying that the forests needed protection in a reserve like a national park if they are to last. The letter was signed by a further 120 students at the school and sent to the company.[194]

The community’s demands and vision for a large national park were echoed in two publications. The first, Victoria’s National Parks A Centenary History by Esther Anderson was published in 2000 by the State Library of Victoria in association with Parks Victoria. Ms. Anderson writes, ‘There has been a community-based move to have part of the Strzelecki State Forest on the Strzelecki Ranges declared a national park. A proposal has been put forward by residents of South Gippsland, supported by Greening Australia, the Latrobe Valley Field Naturalists, the Society for Growing Australian Plants and the Shire of South Gippsland, urging that an area of the Great Forest of Gippsland be reserved’.[195] In a local history about the Balook district in the Strzeleckis, author, Ms. Shingles, writes in regard to the Tarra-Bulga Park, ‘The future of the Park holds opportunity for some expansion. It is proposed that the Park at Balook will be linked with other protected areas in the Strzelecki Ranges to create a Strzelecki National Park’.[196]

In March 2001 The Nature Conservation Review 2001 was released. The report’s recommendations were based on recent and upgraded scientific criteria for ecological sustainability within bioregions. The independent review, written by Barry Traill and Christine Porter was funded by the Victorian National Parks Association and launched on March 5th at the Royal Society. The report added weight to the community’s call for a large national park in the Strzeleckis and was covered by the media, including The Age, the Foster Mirror, Times-Spectator, LaTrobe Valley Express, the Yarram Standard, Leongatha Star and the South Gippsland Sentinel Times.

The report gave four major recommendations for land based reserves across the state, one being that 'a major new park system be established to conserve the biodiversity of the Strzelecki Ranges'. The report argued that a major park system in the Strzelecki Ranges was needed ‘to ensure protection of the remaining biodiversity of the wet and damp eucalypt forests and cool temperate rainforests of the regions’.[197] The lack of reserves in the Strzeleckis was acknowledged, ‘...the wetter forests of the Strzelecki Ranges Bioregion stand out as a forested bioregion requiring special attention due to the high level of threatened Ecological Vegetation Classes and very poor reservation.’[198] An analysis of the data in the study, suggested that a further 45,000 hectares be reserved in the Strzelecki Ranges Bioregion to meet conservation requirements. This scientific study vindicated the community based proposal for a further 25,000 hectares of reserves to be created in the region.

Another website was launched in June 2001 by Friends of the Earth. This site focused on Australian Paper Plantations, Reflex Copy Paper and Amcor’s role in the logging of native forests in the Central Highlands and the Strzeleckis.

On July 31st 2001 Hancock Victorian Plantations announced it had acquired all the assets of Australian Paper Plantations. This meant that the company had acquired Amcors plantation assets and private land (including native forest), some 50,000 hectares across Gippsland. In the Strzelecki Ranges the company acquired 8,600 hectares of leased public land and 25,000 hectares of freehold. The company stated that native forests under their ownership and management would be conserved and protected for their environmental values. The new operation was renamed Grand Ridge Plantations. One private company now managed the bulk of the private and public forests spanning both sides of the Grand Ridge Road.[199] Hancocks now managed approximately 60% of the bioregion’s remaining bush.

In September, the Greens Party held a meeting with Gippsland environmentalists in Foster. After this meeting, the Greens Party resolved to support the development of a major new sustainable park system in the Strzelecki Ranges. This became a policy platform in the federal election of October 2001.[200]

In November 2001, Biosis Research completed the Strzelecki Ranges Biodiversity Study commissioned by the Strzelecki Working Group. Like the Nature Conservation Review the report identified threatened and depleted Ecological Vegetation Classes. Significant species were recorded. Core areas of biodiversity and habitat links were mapped and recommended to be excluded from timber harvesting. The report stated that all native vegetation is ‘important for biodiversity and should be clearly delineated on the ground to minimize disturbance from harvesting activities’.[201] The report also warned against the simplification of biodiversity by the disturbance caused by logging, for example, less species returning and the logged areas becoming more like a plantation. To retain the ecological values of the bioregion in perpetuity, the report suggested that the area must be zoned into unharvested areas, special management areas and harvestable areas, which must ‘conform to the requirements of the local Code of Forest Practices’[202]. The report recommended local prescriptions for areas which may be suitable and appropriate for timber harvesting, including, that ‘planting of Mountain Ash be encouraged for any replanting, and areas of harvestable hardwood should not be replaced by pine trees or any other non-indigenous species, e.g. Shining Gum’.[203]

On April 17, in Parliament, Susan Davies asked Minister Garbutt to ‘outline a time line and a commitment to enabling the establishment of permanent reserves’ in the high value areas identified in the Strzelecki Ranges Biodiversity Study. Minister Garbutt repeated the Government’s commitment to protecting conservation areas in the Strzelecki Ranges, saying after being briefed on the report, she would ‘get back to the honourable member with further details in the next couple of months’.[204]

The release of the report acted as a catalyst for the Strzelecki Working Group to seek common ground. This is not the place to describe the internal workings of the group. Suffice to say, that it has had its fair share of arguments over forest management, disputes over membership and terms of reference. While the recommendations made by Biosis regarding forest management have not yet been thrashed out by the group, it was agreed, by all members, including Hancock Victorian Plantations, that the establishment of the Cores and Links as a reserve was an urgent priority. The group, requested ‘the assistance of the State Government in the speedy implementation of this reserve, in line with the State’s Government’s commitment to full protection of all conservation areas in the Strzelecki Ranges ‘ as outlined in the Government’s publication, Our Natural Assets: Valuing Victoria’s Natural Environment.[205] The working group agreed that the Government should compensate Hancocks for the assets they would lose in the creation of this public asset.

The Strzelecki Working Group proposed reserve would add a further 8,700 hectares to the reserve system, not enough to meet CAR reserve targets, not enough to meet reserve targets in the Draft West Gippsland Native Vegetation Plan or the Nature Conservation Review, not enough to save all of Gunyah and protect other beautiful areas of the Strzelecki bush, but a significant improvement on the mere 5,000 hectares formally reserved in the Strzelecki Ranges; and it did connect the Gunyah Rainforest Reserve with the Tarra-Bulga National Park.[206]The Core and Link areas recommended for reservation included : part of the site of zoological and botanical significance at Gunyah; part of the site of zoological significance at English’s corner ; part of the site of botanical significance at Rytons; areas recommended by the public for reservation during the Land Conservation Council process as well as headwaters recommended for reservation by the Council itself; the Woomera Creek Catchment, which the Mt. Best Concerned Residents proposed as a reserve in 1986; the College Creek area, for which the Friends of Gippsland Bush, had sought protection; and some of the key areas recommended for reserve status in A Proposal for a 30,000 hectare national Park in the Strzelecki State Forest. The College Creek area at the start of the study had been leased to APP, but was now managed by Grand Ridge Plantations. It is of note, that this group containing a diversity of interests managed to concur on the urgent need for further reservation in the forest for the protection of biodiversity.

At the rural and regional forum held in Wonthaggi on August 13 2002 a presentation on the Strzelecki Working Group reserve proposal was made to Mr. Brumby, Minister for State and Regional Development. The Chair of the group, Cr. David Lewis, along with Mr. Kny from HVP and John Gunson from the South Gippsland Conservation Society made a detailed presentation on the community and biodiversity benefits to be gained from such a park. The Star reported that ‘Mr. Brumby promised to follow up the matter and respond formally’.[207]

The Strzelecki Working Group proposal has been given support from Mt. Best Concerned Residents, South Gippsland Conservation Society, Prom Coast Tourism, Friends of the Gippsland Bush, Gippsland Local Government Network, Victorian National Parks Association, Environment Victoria, Field Naturalist Club of Victoria, Friends of the Earth, Hancocks Victorian Plantations and the Wilderness Society. Given the strong, widespread support from scientific reports, the community and the industry, campaigners expected positive action from the government.

In November, an art exhibition was organised by Chelsea Stewart as a fundraising event for Friends of the Gippsland Bush. The Strzelecki forests featured in the talks given at the opening night by the Greens candidates for Gippsland and other speakers.

At the end of November Victorians went to the polls again. The Greens Party highlighted the Strzelecki forests in the South Gippsland and Morwell electorates . Chris Atiken, who ran for Gippsland South, supported ‘the permanent protection of local native forest through the gazettal of the already mooted Strzelecki National Park’.[208] Mr. Aitken received 11.4% of the vote in Gippsland South, a high percentage for a rural electorate. In The Express, Ms. Thompson , Greens candidate for Morwell, criticized the Labor Government for failing ‘to honor its last election commitment to the Strzelecki forests...to full protection of all conservation areas in the Strzelecki Ranges’. She continued, ‘If they do not act on protecting these last remaining remnants, they are as good as endorsing the former Liberal government’s action that they opposed last election’(i.e. the privatisation of the Strzelecki State Forest and inclusion of native forest in the deal).[209] Mr. Brendan Jenkins, Labor candidate for Morwell, publicly supported the Strzelecki Working Group proposal and governmental buyback of HVP’s leases in the Core and Link areas, and received Green preferences in Morwell. Mr. Jenkins won the seat of Morwell.[210]

2003........

Given the obvious widespread local support, peak environmental group backing and scientific justification for a major new park system in the Strzeleckis, folk in South Gippsland are asking—Why has nothing happened? The tragedy is that the Strzelecki forests are in a very vulnerable position at present. The misclassification of native forest as plantation has not been resolved. Mountain Ash is being replaced with exotic species. Rotation rates have been shortened. Local prescriptions don’t exist. The auditing and monitoring of logging operations are inadequate. The leased forest was exempted from the Gippsland RFA’s CAR reserve system, exempted from Forest Management Plans and exempted from Victoria’s Sustainable Yield Review. The Strzelecki bioregion remains pitifully under-reserved and the issue of privatising public native forest has not been addressed.

It would be a great and welcome relief for those campaigning for a large national park if the new Minister for Sustainability and the Environment, Mr. John Thwaites announced that the State Government was buying back a large portion of the Hancock leasehold in the Strzeleckis in order to establish a new national park.

The history of forest campaigns in the Strzelecki Ranges has been a long and persistent one. Complicated by the presence of Australia’s largest paper mill and the associated pressure of industrial supply, campaigners have not only focused on the protection of significant, high conservation areas of forest throughout the years, but general land use and land management decisions. Campaigners have had to work around changes in land tenure—the leasing of state forest to APP in the 1960s and the leasing of state forest to Hancocks in the 1990s; the distortion by the Department of the objectives of the Mountain Ash reforestation scheme; the deception by the Department and the Government in allowing areas of native forest that have been logged previously, to be relabelled as plantation in the 1990s and an ingrained reluctance by authorities to fully protect ecological values and serve community interests by reserving a viable portion of the forest in a formal reserve. At present, campaigners are also participating in a Forest Stewardship Council certification process initiated by Hancocks. These issues are ongoing. The bulk of the Strzelecki State Forest may be leased, but the sense of public ownership and public interest is alive and kicking.

The forest campaigns in the Strzeleckis have inclined towards prolonged negotiation participation in public processes, submission and proposal writing. There has been the odd confrontations in the forest with the Department, some fiery public meetings and the odd demonstration, however the strategies and tactics employed have been marked by a less confrontational approach. Some of the earlier parks were achieved only after years of genteel negotiation and persuasion. Recent campaigning has certainly raised the profile of the Strzelecki forests in the wider conservation movement and scientific reports have certainly supported local concerns. However, there is a sense that time may be running out for the Strzelecki forests. Gippslanders hope that they won’t have to lie down in front of the bulldozers , but judging by the lack of success we’ve had so far in achieving a decent reserve and sustainable forest management, perhaps it’s the only option left.

For further information, pictures, maps on the Strzelecki State Forest and access to ‘A Proposal for a 30,000 hectare National Park in the Strzelecki State Forest’, visit Kim and Julie's website at: http://members.dcsi.net.au/kimjulie

Hancock Watch is located at <http://www.forests.org.au/strzelecki>

Australian Paper site is located at http://www.australianpaper.forests.org.au

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ALP Our Natural Assets Valuing Victoria’s 1999

Natural Environment

Anderson, Esther Victoria's National Parks, State Library of Victoria

A Centenary History

The Bird Observers Club Submission to Land Conservation Council 1982

CF&L A research project to optimise control of browsing damage during reforestation and plantation establishment

Cochrane G et al Flowers & Plants of Victoria and Tasmania Reed Books, 1980

Collett, Barry Wednesdays Closest to the Full Moon Melbourne Uni. Press, 1994

Concerned Residents of Submission to the Gippsland RFA

Sustain the Strzeleckis

Constable J, Devenish K & A Proposal for a 30,000 hectare National 1998

Standering A Park in the Strzelecki State Forest

DC&E Welcome to the Strzelecki Forest Drive

DNRE Code of Forest Practices for Timber 1996

Production

Devenish K & Strzelecki Blues: Mucking Around 1997

Constable J with a State Forest

DNRE Victoria’s Biodiversity Directions in 1997

Management

Dorrington S& Percival P Submission on the Future of the Regrowth 1986

Forest on the Southern Face of the Mount Fatigue-Woomerra Creek Ridge

Ealey, T Plantation Logging in the Strzeleckis 1999

Elms AW et al Land of the Lyrebird A story of early Korumburra & settlement in the Great Forest of South District Historical Gippsland Society, 1920,1998

Flora & Fauna Survey & Sites of Botanical Significance for Rainforest 1990

Management Group in South Gippsland

Forests Commission of The Strzeleckis: A New Future for the 1979

Victoria Heartbreak Hills

Fraser, Elaina Strzelecki Rainforest Report

Gippsland Independent Gippsland RFA Public Consultation 2000

Panel Issues Report

Gippsland RFA Comprehensive Regional Assessment 1999

Report

Gippsland RFA Gippsland RFA Consultation Paper 2000

Gullan et al Sites of Botanical Significance in CF&L, 1984

Central Victoria

Jackson P, Koehn J (1988) A Review of biological information, Arthur Rylah Institute

distribution& Status of the Australian Grayling

Land Conservation Council South Gippsland Area District 2 1980

Land Conservation Council Proposed Recommendations 1982

Land Conservation Council Final Recommendations 1982

Mansergh I, Norris K (1982) Sites of Zoological Significance in Central Ministry for Conservation

Gippsland Vol.1 & 2

Morgan, Patrick The Settling of Gippsland Gippsland Municipalities Assoc. 1997

Moulds, Francis R The Dynamic Forest Lynedoch 1991

Mueck, S et al The Strzelecki Ranges Biodiversity Study 2001

Panel Report Applications by Amcor Plantations Pty Ltd 1996

Peel, B Rainforests & Cool Temperate Mixed NRE, 1999

Forests of Victoria

Pridgin, R Mt. Fatigue Reforestation Plan 1989

Shingles, R Triumph over the Heartbreak Hills JJB 2001

Sinclair, EK The Spreading Tree: A History of APM & Allen & Unwin, 1990

Amcor, 1844-1989

South Gippsland Submission to the LCC South Gippsland 2 1980

Conservation Society Area District

Traill B, Porter C Nature Conservation Review, 2001 VNPA 2001

Yarram & District Submission to LCC on Proposed 1982

Conservation Group Recommendations for South Gippsland 2 Sudy Area

[1] Recollections and Experiences of arriving in South Gippsland, 1883, Mr. G Matheson from Land of the Lyrebird 1920,1998 p.278

[2] For discussion on big trees see ‘Strzelecki forest giants impress British botanist’ Foster Mirror 4/11/98. The lyrebird connection is proclaimed in the title of a collection of early settler accounts in The Land of the Lyrebird A story of Early Settlement in the Great Forest of South Gippsland; the Shire of Woorayl is named after the lyrebird and the South Gippsland Conservation Society uses the lyrebird as its logo.

[3] Collett B 1994 Wednesdays Closest to the full Moon p.175

[4] Collett B1994 ibid chapter1 and Bradshaw J (1999) The Early Settlement of South Gippsland p3-4

[5] Land Conservation Council 1980 South Gippsland Area District 2, p.47

[6] For detailed descriptions of life in the Eastern Strzeleckis, see Morgan P (1997) The Settling of Gippsland chapter 12 ‘Collapse of the Hill Farms’

[7] Morgan P 1997 p.123

[8] Morgan P.1997 ibid p.126

[9] The Department has had many names over the years —Department of Conservation, Forests & Land; Department of Conservation & Environment; Department of Natural Resources & Environment

[10] Land Conservation Council (Nov. 1982) Final Recommendations South Gjippsland Area District 2 p.33

[11] Land Conservation Council, (1980), South Gippsland Area District 2 p.230 ‘In 1979-80, the government commitment to APM for softwood pulpwood was 30,000m³. By the year 2000 the annual commitment will increase to 100,000 m³ until 2004’

[12] Quoted in LCC Final Recommendations SG Area 2 1982 p.33

[13] ibid p. 33

[14] It seems that the aims of the reafforestation scheme were misdirected on the ground, and other natural forest types were destroyed to make way for industry’s preferred timber, Pine and Mountain Ash. Mansergh and Norris (1982) note that ‘The policy of establishing pine plantations on disused farmland is a more desirable practice than clearing native vegetation. However, in some instances disused farmland is forested private property which would probably support a higher diversity of native species than the consequent pine plantation’.p.21-2

[15] Land Conservation Council (1980), South Gippsland Area District 2 p.218 This did not include the foothill areas of the Strzeleckis, which were also utilized. The Foster Mirror also reports in 1986 that 5,000m³ of timber had been taken annually for 40-50 years. This article does not mention the quantity of pulpwood. ‘CF&L to consider reforestation scheme’ 15/101986 front page.

[16] Traill B (2001) Nature Conservation Review, 2001 p.108

[17] Flora and Fauna Survey & Management Group 1990 Table 1

[18] The underlined species are rare or threatened and included on at least one state on national databases, such as, Flora & Fauna Guarantee; IUCN Red list; Endangered Species Protection Act; Environment Protection & Biodiversity Conservation Act..

[19] Brown and dusky antechinus and the long and short nosed bandicoot

[20] Quoted in Friends of the Earth, Melbourne, Letter of Enquiry for US environment and shareholder groups regarding the logging activities of Hancock Victorian Plantations’. September 1999

[21] Report of Panel Hearing on Applications by Amcor Plantations September 1996 p. 46

[22] Friends of the Earth, September 1999 op cit

[23]Jackson 1988 Review of biological information, distribution & status of the Australian grayling p 15

[24] Mansergh (1982) Vol.1 p.90

[25] Mansergh (1982) Vol.2 p.1-2

[26] Mansergh (1982) Vol.2 p.1-2 The recommendation that the maintenance and increase of mature forest in the study area has not been followed.

[27] The original Gunyah reserve, from the 1889s was larger, stretching further south to Mt. Fatigue lookout. It can be seen in McNaughton W, Gunyah 1894-1940 and also on parish maps. The 1984 site of botanical significance is also a larger area, stretching further south and north into the Morwell River East Branch.

[28] Traill B, Porter C Nature Conservation Review, Victoria 2001 VNPA 2001 p.108

[29] Mueck S et al (Nov 2001) Strzelecki Ranges Biodiversity Study p.41

[30] ibid p.70

[31] Collett, B (1994) Wednesdays Closest to the Full Moon p.174

[32] Collett, B (1994) ibid p.129

[33] Victorian Government Gazette June 2, 1882

[34] Collett, B (1994) ibid p.175 Collett on p.128 refers to the 40,000 acre timber reserve at Mt. Fatigue. On parish maps, the reserve at Gunyah/Mt. Fatigue is more like 2,000 acres in size, so it seems that at some point more of the reserve was opened up for selection.

[35] The advent of clearfell silvicultural methods in recent decades has seen increased conflicts over the use of our forests for timber, conservation, aesthetics and water production.

[36] Anderson, Esther (2000) p.72

[37] Anderson, Esther (2000) p.102 Since the Fosters Gully was declared national park in 1967, additions have been made. In 1980, the upper reaches of Fosters Gully were added from ex APM land. In 1988, the Billys Creek extension was declared. In 1999, Tebbs Terrace blocks were added from ex-SECV land.

[38] Anderson, Esther (2000) p.130;161

[39] Sinclair, EK (1990) The Spreading Tree A History of APM and Amcor 1844-1989 p.101 The book contains a photograph of the ‘Hi-Ball’, an 8’ diameter steel ball which was pulled along by a tractor to clear forests for pulpwood.

[40] Foster Mirror 21/11/1979 ‘Restoring Life at Mount Best’.

[41] The Mirror April 11, 1979

[42] ibid ‘The Pearl Park Issue ...’

[43] ibid ‘On-Site Meeting about Gunyah Forest Logging’ May 9, 1979

[44] ibid ‘Further View on Gunyah Forest’ Letter to the Editor, Phyllis Kerr. May 23, 1979

[45] Balook & District Residents Association (BADRA) to Mr. Hamer, October 2 1978 signed Ms Margaret Long, President

[46] BADRA to FJ Granter, Minister for Forests 16/11/1979 lists all flora and fauna species from Macks Valley — 9 pages in all.

[47] BADRA to FJ Granter, Minister for Forests, November 16, 1979

[48] Shire of Alberton to YDCG, November 29, 1979

[49] The Age, November 19, 1979

[50] Conservation Council of Victoria, Correspondence, November 21, 1979

[51] South Gippsland Conservation Society ‘Recommendations for consideration by the Land Conservation Council before preparation of Final Recommendations’ August 1982

[52] YDCG, These concerns were reiterated in their August 1982 ‘Submission to LCC on Proposed Recommendations for South Gippsland 2 Study Area.’

[53] South Gippsland Conservation Society Submission to the LCC South Gippsland Area District 2 December 1980 p.11

[54] The submission from the Foster Branch detailed the Gunyah/Mt. Fatigue site. They requested a park be created between Dingo Creek and the Midland Highway to the Grand Ridge Road, including the upper catchments of the Morwell, Franklin and Agnes Rivers, the Little Franklin Reserve and frontage, the historic Foster-Boolarra Road, the Gunyah Gunyah Timber Reserve, the Upper Franklin River Valley, the Upper Agnes River Valley, the Dingo Creek Valley and Mt. Fatigue. They also proposed a habitat link between the Gunyah area and Tarra Valley and Bulga National Parks. The Branch detailed many other blocks of native vegetation in the Eastern Strzeleckis which should be given reserve status McCartins Track, Crown Allotments 58c,59b,59c,59d, Parish of Mirboo South; strip along Turtons Creek; They also submitted that the Hedley Ranges Crown land be retained as a National Park

[55] The Bird Observers Club ‘Submission to Land Conservation Council regarding Proposed Recommendations’ 1982 This is a reference to the 8,100 hectares leased to APM in the Strzelecki Ranges

[56] SGCS Letter to politicians July 1982

[57] ‘Recommendations for Consideration by the LCC before preparation of Final Recommendations’. SGSC August, 1982 p.3

[58] SGCS to Shire of SG 27/7/82 Signed Sandra Campbell Secretary.

[59] BADRA letter to other organizations 15/8/82

[60] ibid BADRA cites the proposed clearing and planting operation in Macks Creek Valley; massive clearing of Mountain Ash to the boundary of Bulga National Park and along the Grand Ridge Road; A 1981 clearing and planting coup in Tarra Valley resulting ‘in an arm of pines spearing in between the Parks from the south; proposals for pines in Macks Creek and Greigs Creek Valleys and ‘the blundering maneuver of actual pine planting in Macks Creek Valley’.

[61] Letter to Evan Walker, Minister of Conservation, and Mr. Mackenzie, Minister for Forests, July 26 1982

[62] Land Conservation Council Final Recommendations, South Gippsland Area District 2 Introduction. Presumably they are referring to the power industry and timber industry.

[63] LCC (1980) South Gippsland Area District 2 p.284

[64] Anderson, E (2000) op cit p.225 The Park was proclaimed in 1991 and a further small extension was made during the Gippsland Regional Forest Agreement process.

[65] ibid p. 34

[66] Proposed Recommendations South Gippsland Area District 2, LCC 1982 Introduction

[67] Final Recommendations p.22 -24

[68] LCC Nov, 1982 Final Recommendations, South Gippsland Area District 2, p.35

[69] YDCG letter to R Mackenzie, 18/7/1983

[70] Weekly Times ‘Yarram group calls for timber inquiry’. 27/7/1983

[71] Woomera Creek is a tributary of the Agnes River.

[72] That is, the logging in the Agnes Catchment north of the Devil’s Pinch Road, 1985-8. See Submission on the Future of the Regrowth Forest on the Southern Face of the Mount Fatigue-Woomerra Creek Ridge by Sue Dorrington and Paddy Percival, Dec. 1 1986

[73] The Mirror ‘Consultation on forest replanting—Mt. Best meeting” 24/9/1986

[74] ibid

[75] The Mirror ‘Mt. Fatigue Destruction - Residents annoyed’ September 17, 1986

[76] The Mirror ibid

[77] ibid

[78] The Mirror ‘CF&L to consider reforestation scheme’ 15/10/1986

[79] The study conducted in January 1987, employed a psychologist to test the group’s reaction to images of landscape destruction. It seems the group expressed the same responses as the general population.

[80] The Mirror ‘Mount Best Concerned Residents’ 28/1/1987

[81] CF&L A research project to optimize control of browsing damage during reforestation and plantation establishment

[82] A letter to the editor described the baiting as ‘a killing field throughout South Gippsland, Gormandale, Yarram, Driffield, Wonga and other areas’. The Mirror 29/9/87 In 1994 the 1080 Awareness Group, based in Gormandale had success in stopping the use of 1080 in APM’s plantations.

[83] ‘Protection sought for Mt. Fatigue’ The Mirror 4/3/1987

[84] Letter to Minister Kirner, 26/2/87 from S Dorrington on behalf of MBCR.

[85] The Mirror ‘Mining Leases Refused’. 1/7/1987

[86] See Gullan et al Sites of Botanical Significance in Central Gippsland

[87] Mt. Fatigue Reforestation Plan 1989 Production Planning Officer, R Pridgin Yarram.

[88] The Mirror ‘Little compromise on reforestation’ December 6, 1989

[89] Transcript from tapes of public meeting, November 28 1989

[90] Transcript from tapes of public meeting, Foster, November 28 1989

[91] ibid

[92] Speaker Ian Hemphill, Forest Production Planner. 26/1/1990 Mt. Best Hall. Department staff present: Ken King, Regional Officer, Yarram; Les Leunig, Land Protection Officer, Foster; Tony Willott, Bio-protection planner.

[93] I have given some details of these assurances here as it reveals a discrepancy between what is told to the public and what occurs later in the saga of the Strzelecki State Forest.

[94] Foster Mirror 23/12/1998 Front cover

[95] D.C.&E. 13/4/1992 Signed by Richard Rawson, General Manager, Gippsland

[96] The group revived intermittently as issues arose.

[97] Report of Panel Hearing on Applications by Amcor Plantations Pty Ltd, 1996 p.16

[98] ibid p.41

[99] ibid p.41

[100] ibid p.38

[101] Clause 3—10.1 Planning Scheme

[102] ibid p.39

[103] FoE newsletter, August 1977 p.6 ‘To Negotiate or not to Negotiate or not’

[104] ibid p.

[105] ibid p.6

[106] This agreement did save many areas of bush. However, the problem of the impermanency of agreements with company’s that come and go, was demonstrated later. In 2002, Hancock Victorian Plantations, who had bought these areas, sold some blocks, and clearing took place on some blocks after the sale. FOGB has managed to have further sales stopped.

[107] SGCS Newsletter, retrospective on situation, Autumn 1998p.5

[108] ibid p.5

[109] reprinted in SGCS newsletter, Spring 1997 p.9

[110] This becomes evident in letters to the editor, the telephone calls that occurred, the revival of various conservation groups, public meetings and so on.

[111] Foster Mirror ‘Logging Action Unpopular’ 23/7/1997

[112] Telephone conversation with Mr. Tony Manderson, 7/7/1997. In 1997, Mr. Devenish asked NRE to supply data on hectares of forest in the Strzelecki State Forest, plantation establishment, reforestation and native forest logging. This was followed up again during the Gippsland RFA. Answers to data questions have still not been supplied. In regard to record keeping of so called hardwood plantations, I was told 20/300 by R. Rawson, NRE that records had been given to the VPC. A representative from VPC said that NRE had kept them; on another occasion that record keeping was not rigorous (NRE staff member); on another, that the records had all been burned(VPC staff member).(Telephone conversation records)

[113] The Age ‘MP attacks state over public land sell-off plan’ 6/11/1997

[114] FoE Newsletter ‘The Great Forest Sell Off’ by Anthony Amis December 1997 p.10

[115] The article pointed out that many conservation groups supported plantations because they were led to believe that this would result in a move away from sourcing from native forests. The author warns against this saying, ‘This naive perception doesn’t take into account the fact that the state government and logging interests never had any intention of getting out of native forests’.[115] The Gippsland Regional Forest Public Consultation Issues Report, March 2000 demonstrates industry’s viewpoint. ‘Industry supports plantations to facilitate growth but not as a substitute for existing native forests’(p.7). The state government has in the past made comments about using plantations to ease pressure on native forest, but in selling the state’s plantation assets to private interests, may have forfeited a degree of control over any transition from native forest to plantation. Evidence on the ground suggests that private interests favour fast growing hardwood for pulp and not sawn timber.

[116] Environment Victoria News Issue 46 March 1998

[117] ibid

[118] Foster Mirror ‘Look what’s happening to our forest!’ 25/3/1998

[119] See Studies and Reports, Mansergh and Norris (1982)

[120] Telephone conversation, Mr. Hemphill VPC July 1997

[121] Timber Industry Strategy Government Statement 1986 p.95

[122] The current maps showing HVP hardwood plantations claim 1500 ha. established since 1986. These are mostly on areas supporting native forest prior to conversion, including areas within sites of botanical and zoological significance, areas recommended for reserve status by the LCC. The DCE brochure "welcome to the Strzelecki Forest Drive" (undated, but circa 1990) states: "In any one year wood is harvested from about 100 ha (0.9%) of the native Strzelecki forests. It goes on to say "Forests are regenerated following harvesting".

[123] Supported by photographic evidence, newspaper articles and also in 1999 ‘Plantation Logging in the Strzeleckis’ by Dr. T Ealey.

[124] Victoria’s Biodiversity Directions in Management NRE 1997 says that rotation lengths of 80 years have an adverse effect on the biota. p.83 The Strzelecki Ranges Biodiversity Study 2001 identifies ‘inappropriate timber harvesting’ as a ‘potentially threatening process to the biodiversity of the Strzelecki Ranges’ and discusses these impacts. p.41

[125] Telephone conversation with Mr. T. Manderson 7/7/1997

[126] Mr. Davis to Mr. A Bos, 8/7/1998

[127] We have had phone calls from green groups wondering if their local users of forest produce could source from the Strzeleckis. The Wilderness Society wrote asking for information about whether to recommend the use of Planthard products, a mill sourcing from ‘plantation grown Victorian ash from 10,000 ha. in the Strzelecki Ranges’. 25/9/1999

[128] Personal conversations; copies of letters; Minutes of Mt. Best Concerned Residents Group 24/5/98 and the sentiments expressed at the first Regional Forest Meeting in Yarram.

[129] In 1978 the entire hardwood harvest for Won Wron, Mullungdung, Alberton West and the Strzelecki State Forest was 47,000m3. (LCC, 1982) In comparison, by 1997, the VPC resolved to cut 100,000 m³ annually from its chunk of the Strzelecki State Forest alone. 100,000m3 to supply just one of its customers. (Latrobe Valley Express, 13/11/97). FOE also raised concerns about this commitment and about political favouristism—

[130] State forest management allows for some public input into Wood Utilization Plans. This does not apply to leased public land. State forests also undergo reviews etc. In 2001 a review of sustainable yield of sawlogs in Victoria was held under the direction of Professor J Vanclay. The Strzelecki leased lands were exempt from this review.

[131] Survey work by Elaina Fraser. Fraser has mapped further rainforest throughout the Strzeleckis.

[132] Examples of press articles: ‘Forests Sell-off’, 21/4/98 South Gippsland Sentinel Times; ‘Do we Want our forests sold off?’ Mirror 22/4/1998;

[133] Sun Herald ‘Forest Sale open to all’ 17/3/1998

[134] The Mirror 22/4/1998 ‘Do we want our forests sold off?’

[135] For example, see Cochrane et al Flowers and Plants of Victoria 1968,1980. The Strzelecki Ranges are identified as the South Gippsland Highlands.

[136] Foster Mirror ‘Strzelecki Sell Off To Go Ahead’ May 6, 1998

[137] Hansard, 29/4/98

[138] The Noes: Mr. Andrianopoulos, Ms Gillett, Mr. Baker, Mr. Haermeyer, Ms Kosky; Mr. Bracks, Mr. Langdon, Mr. Brumby, Mr. Leighton, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Lim, Ms Campbell, Mr. Loney, Mr. Carli, Mrs. Maddigan, Mr. Cole, Mr. Mildenhall, Mr. Cunningham, Mr. Robinson, Ms Davies, Mr. Savage, Mr. Djollis, Mr. Sietz, Ms Garbutt, Mr. Thwaites, Mrs. Wilson. Members of the opposition spoke and voted against the Bill in the Legislative Council on 12 May 1998.

[139] Headlines from Leongatha Star 19/5/1998; Foster Mirror 20/5/1998 and Yarram Standard News 13/5/1998

[140] Foster Mirror 27/5/1998 ‘Council acts on Strzeleckis’

[141] ibid

[142] See Gippsland RFA Region map. DFAs. 24/11/1995

[143] Joint Statement, Senator John Faulkner and David Beddall MP, Dec 1 1995

[144] Letter from Kim Devenish & Julie Constable, 15/4/98 to Environment Australia, relevant politicians, Environment Groups, Shire Councils

[145] Personal Correspondence, 24/4/1998

[146] Environment Australia to Ms. J Meyer, 31 May 1998

[147] Phillip Davis, Parliamentary Secretary Natural Resources, wrote, ‘If you consider that there are areas of native vegetation that could make an important contribution to the CAR Reserve System in the Strzelecki Ranges, you should convey those views through the RFA process dealing with the development of the Gippsland RFA’. Letter from Phillip Davis, May 8, 1998

[148] Yarram Standard 20/5/1998 ‘Fears for Strzeleckis at forest agreement meeting’

[149] See the list of related newspaper articles dealing with the privatisation of the SSF and the RFA meetings in the bibliography

[150] Sentinel Times, May 26 1998

[151] South Gippsland Sentinel Times 5/5/1998 ‘Still hope for forest?’

[152] Sentinel Times 26/5/1998 ‘Heat on govt over forests’.

[153] Leongatha Star 14/7/1998 ‘What a Day to do battle in the bush’

[154] Presumably, the LCC’s recommendations that the forest remain in public tenure and subject to the Forests Act.

[155] Written by local residents Kim Devenish, Julie Constable and Alan Standering; funding for printing provided by South Gippsland Conservation Society.

[156] Letters to editors from newspaper archive; letters of support for the proposal archived by K. Devenish & J. Constable.

[157] In the Spring session, 5,400 signatures were tabled in the Victorian Parliament. A further 2,000 signatures were tabled in the Autumn session.

[158] Foster Mirror 5/8/1998 ‘Council delegation will press for Strzelecki Nat. Park’

[159] Foster Mirror 26/8/1998

[160] Foster Mirror 23/9/1998

[161] La Trobe Valley Express 10/9/1998 ‘Shire Push to conserve areas of the Strzeleckis’

[162] The Age 10/8/1998

[163] The Age ‘Conservationists stumped by corporate plantations’. 16/8/98

[164] SGCS Newsletter, Spring 1998. p.11

[165] Personal correspondence from Mrs. Tehan 4/9/1998

[166] Australia Paper Plantations did not approve of the Shire’s proposed study of environmental significance. Letter from J. Cameron, General Manager APP to P. Holloway, CEO LaTrobe Shire, 22/2/1999

[167] FOGB Meeting paper.

[168] By selling the State’s plantation assets, the State also removed itself from decisions about moving from native forest into plantation timbers. It lost a flexibility and long term planning by relinquishing rights to pine plantations across the state, which could have been developed in different ways to meet conservation needs.

[169] Sentinel Times ‘Anger at forests sell-off’ 10/11/1998

[170] Foster Mirror 25/11/98 ‘SG residents grieved by sale of Strzelecki Forest’/

[171] Sentinel Times 22/12/98

[172] Submission No. 349 Senate Inquiry

[173] That is, the website established by Kim Devenish and Julie Constable

[174] Sentinel Times ‘Heat on the Strzeleckis’ 16/2/1999 These initial statements were welcomed, but to date the contentious issue of the classification of all young biodiverse forest as plantation has not been addressed.

[175] Foster Mirror 24/2/99

[176] Further members were added in 2002—Trust for Nature and a resident from Wellington Shire

[177] Memorandum of Understanding, witnessed by Robert Maclellan, Minister for Planning and Local Government, April 9 1999

[178] The Age, ‘Report slams state forestry group’. 15/9/1999

[179] Ealey (1999) Plantation Logging in the Strzeleckis p.12

[180] Ealey (1999) ibid p.12

[181] The Mirror ‘Forest Watch Called For’ 29/9/1999

[182] The public were outraged that mapping was not made available prior to the sale for public scrutiny. This matter was raised in Parliament by Susan Davies and Sherryl Garbutt. VPC prepared maps of the ‘hardwood plantations’ were not made public until mid February 1999.

[183] ALP Our Natural Assets: Valuing Victoria's natural environment p. 10-11

[184] Personal conversations with RFA team members

[185] Private conversations between Kim Devenish and at various times John Davies, botanist, Brian Ward, Flora & Fauna, and Peter McHugh, NRE.

[186] K. Devenish and J Constable, letters to the new Minister, Ms. Garbutt, 29/10/99 and submission to the RFA Independent Panel set up by the new Government..

[187] A. Webley, President MBCR Letter to Minister for Environment & Conservation, 10/5/2002

[188] Gippsland Regional Forest Agreement Consultation Paper January 2000 Joint Commonwealth/Victorian RFA Steering Committee p.28

[189] Joint Commonwealth/Victorian RFA Steering Committee (2000)e ibid p.29

[190] CROSS Submission to the Gippsland RFA Consultation 18/2/2000 Paper p.1

[191] VNPA submission to the RFA Independent Panel, March 3 2000

[192] Gippsland Regional Forest Agreement Public Consultation Issues Report Gippsland Independent Panel March 2000 p.16

[193] Letter from G O’Neill, 13/7/01 to Mr. K Devenish. The VEAC legislation did finally pass through Parliament, but a particular amendment in the Legislative Council, restricted its jurisdiction to public land. While the leased forest is public land, it is at present being treated as if it were private. The alternative approaches (at time of writing) have not been outlined.

[194] Letter from Fabian Toonen. There has been no reply.

[195] Anderson, Esther 2000 op cit p.212

[196] Shingles, R 2001 Triumph over the Heartbreak Hills p.89

[197] Traill & Porter, 2001 op cit p.108

[198] Traill & Porter, 2001 op cit p.107 The report also discussed the problems associated with intensive plantation forestry in the remnant forests of the Strzeleckis and the controversy surrounding the classification of some native forest as plantation. See Appendix 3.5 Strzelecki Ranges: plantations, native forest and land tenure issues p189f.

[199] Grand Ridge Plantations manage and own approximately 74,000 hectares in the Strzelecki Ranges Bioregion. Their leasehold is approximately 48,000 hectares.

[200] Foster Mirror 10/10/01

[201] Mueck S, et al (2001) Strzelecki Ranges Biodiversity Study p.67

[202] Mueck S, et al (2001) ibid p.61

[203] Mueck S (2001) ibid p.70

[204] Hansard 17/4/02

[205] Letter to Hon. S Garbutt, 31/1/02 Signed David Lewis, Chairperson Strzelecki Working Group

[206] Adoption of the proposal would raise the level of reservation in the Strzelecki bioregion from below 2% to just below 5%. The Draft Regional Vegetation Plan for West Gippsland suggests a further 25,000 hectares should be reserved to bring the percentage for the bioregion to 10%. The Nature Conservation Review sets reserve targets in the Strzelecki bioregion at 16%, because of its fragmented status, meaning a further 45,000 hectares needs to be reserved.

[207] The Star ‘Plea Put to Brumby on Strzelecki National Park’. August 20, 2002

[208] Foster Mirror 6/11/02

[209] The Express, 21/11/02 ‘Greens want to protect key conservation areas’

[210] The Express 25/11/02 ‘Labor gets rub of the Greens’ and ‘Timber plan praise’