Ecological Blog

There is still very little detail available about the secret 'deal' between the State Government and Hancocks but this background may help to set the scene for anyone who hasn't been involved in the process.

The Strzeleckis are unique forests which are a mosaic of old growth including rainforest, reforestation/plantings, plantations and regenerating forests. The public forests of the Strzeleckis have been excluded from public land planning processes which set aside comprehensive and adequate reserves. The Strzeleckis have the least amount of land set aside in any forested region of Victoria. The minimum for public land is 15% of the original vegetation while the Strzeleckis has only 2% protected in Parks and Reserves. The Strzeleckis have most recently been identified as one of the most important regions for the sequestration of carbon, which occurs at much higher rates than previously considered, creating an even more pressing reason to secure their preservation.

The starting point for the issue was that there should be no harvest of timber in the Cores and Links. The Cores and Links are key sites linking Gunyah Gunyah Reserve in the West to Tarra Bulga National Park in the East. There are 5 core areas, Gunyah, College Creek, Jack...

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Tags: hancock victorian plantations, logging, rainforest, strzeleckis

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Posted at: 07:45 AM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

The Victorian Government has signed an agreement with Hancock Victorian Plantations, which ensures the destruction of native forest in Gippsland’s Strzelecki Ranges.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Gavin Jennings and HVP’s CEO Linda Sewell claimed that under the agreement, native forests across HVP’s entire estate in Gippsland’s Strzelecki Ranges would be protected.

But no mapping has been provided to back up their claims. Both finalised the legal agreement, after reaching a secret in-principle agreement in May.

The agreement ignores the Government's 2006 election commitment to protect the 8000 hectare Cores and Links’ area and create a reserve to be managed by the Trust for Nature.

Mr Jennings tried to put a positive spin on the deal saying “It will result in the immediate protection of the native forest in the Cores and Links and the eventual protection of all areas of the Cores and Links.

“1500 hectares of plantation areas within the Cores and Links will be subject to a one-off harvest, with those areas progressively regenerated and placed into public reserves and protection over the next 20 years.”

Unfortunatelty the deal means that native forest in areas such as College Creek will be trashed and turned into wood chips...

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Tags: hancock, logging, rainforest, strzelecki

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Posted at: 01:53 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

 

Victoria's Environment Minister Gavin Jennings has responded to concerns that the recent Strzelecki Ranges 'cores and links' deal will lead to the fragmentation and destruction of sensitive rainforest.

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Tags: cores and links, hancock victorian plantations, logging, rainforest, strzeleckis

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Posted at: 07:31 AM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

The Victorian State Government has just revealed a deal with Hancock Victorian Plantations to pay $5.5 million to protect 20,000 ha of native forest in the Strzelecki Ranges.
The ink is hardly dry on the agreement announced by Environment Minister Gavin Jennings and Hancock CEO Linda Sewell and we have only seen the press release.  There hasn't been time to analyse the detail of the agreement and as the community was excluded from the negotiations it's likely there will some difficulties with new players not understanding the background. The community will need to look at it closely to see if it is likely to achieve the level of biodiversity protection required.

The announcement will permit 1500ha to be logged from the Cores and Links which is around 600ha more than would have been logged in the Reserve under the HoA.  It appears that College Creek, a site of National Conservation Significance, will not be protected under the deal.
One disturbing point is that Ms Sewell refers to the arrangement as an 'in principle agreement' with a final agreement expected to be signed around July.

The company's track record in honouring non-binding agreements is hardly inspiring. It signed an 8 point agreement, it signed a Memorandum of Understanding, it signed a...

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Tags: hancock victorian plantations, rainforest, strzelecki forest

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Posted at: 12:02 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

 

A petition is now active at
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/strzelecki/
to ask the Victorian State Government to honour its election promise to create a rainforest reserve in the Strzelecki
Ranges and protect sensitive areas from logging. The problem is that a previous Victorian Government hit on the bright idea of raising revenue by selling off state-owned forests to private enterprise.
When it was pointed out to them that they couldn't sell Crown Land they quickly arranged perpetual leases for the logging companies.
Some of the land should never have been sold (leased) because of its ecological values and it took years of active lobbying to get the Government and Hancock Victorian Plantations  to acknowledge that.
A deal was organised with the help of Minister Thwaites to buy-back the most important bits of the rainforest - identified by independent consultants - for $7 million.
Everything looked sweet, then the Minister and the Premier resigned. The company seized the opportunity to lobby the new Minister and try to screw a better deal.
All we are asking is for the State Government to honour the agreement it made, which was part of its policy platform at the last election, to pay $7 million for an 8000 hectare...

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Tags: hancock, rainforest, strzeleckis

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Posted at: 06:51 AM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

The latest photos of  Hancock Victorian Plantations logging practicesin the Strzeleckis can be seen at http://www.hancock.forests.org.au/docs/08may.htm plus some of the latest press coverage.

Tags: hancocks, rainforest, strzeleckis

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Posted at: 02:57 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

Friends of the Earth  and Friends of Gippsland Bush have announced concerns that the Cores and Links Deal to save Strzelecki Rainforest is no closer to resolution 18 months after a Heads of Agreement to protect the area was signed. Hancock Victorian Plantations (HVP) and the State Government have until May 2 to sort out the deal before a recently extended deadline collapses.
 
FoE spokesman Anthony Amis said; "We're still in the dark. I mentioned to Minister Jennings' advisors three weeks ago that a round table meeting with all parties present would be the best way to go. I thought it a good idea to talk our way through this, but apparently this idea has fallen on deaf ears. We fear that a deal without community support will severely undermine the ecological integrity of the region."
 
"FoE has already expressed concern that HVP and DSE had cooked up a deal between themselves prior to the community even being involved in the process. This has been confirmed by a recent Freedom of Information (FoI) Request which explicity shows that DSE and HVP had agreed on 3 options several days before the community was first invited in to negotiations in May 2006."
 
"The... [More]

Tags: hancocks, logging, rainforest, strzeleckis

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Posted at: 04:00 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

Community groups, Friends of Gippsland Bush and Friends of the Earth today expressed concern that negotiations over the buy-back of key rainforest and wet forests of the Strzelecki Ranges continue to stall. The Reserve was announced by Environment Minister John Thwaites in October 2006 (the new Environment Minister is Gavin Jennings) and is still official Labor Party Policy.
 
Groups are upset that Hancock Victorian Plantations continue to log contentious rainforest areas in the cores and links, without community input, which is in breach of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in October 2006. The groups have documented many breaches to the HoA committed by Hancock over the past 17 months.
 
"The way the community has been treated by the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) and Hancock has been absolutely disgraceful" said Friends of the Earth spokesman Anthony Amis. "Almost every effort to negotiate an outstanding win for the biodiversity of the region, has been thwarted and undermined by the DSE who are opposing any moves that Trust for Nature manage the area as Reserve. DSE want to take control in order to log the reserve themselves" Mr Amis said. "We've had to put up with 17 months of... [More]

Tags: hancocks, logging, rainforest, wood chips

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Posted at: 04:15 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

It's a red letter day! I managed to get a response from Minister Jennings' office. After hearing that DSE staff in Traralgon were saying the decision had been made to hand the Cores and Links over to VicForest - dumping Government policy for the sensitive areas to be managed by Trust for Nature - I emailed the Minister's Chief of Staff, Ben Hart.

The only reason for the response was that I copied in Age investigative journalist Richard Baker. Mr Hart didn't like that, saying it wouldn't do the cause any good. He claimed that "This is a very unfortunate situation and one we have been working very hard to resolve for some time.

But what the hell have they been working hard at? The previous Minister John Thwaites, thrashed out a deal over some years. The deal was accepted by the community and the company and it became Government policy - announced before the last election. All Mr Hart had to do was to oversee the  implementation of the policy.

Instead of that, he and DSE staff have been running around working against policy to come up with a bodgy deal.

Tags: rainforest, strzeleckis, trust for nature

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Posted at: 06:48 AM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink

Victoria's Environment Minister Gavin Jennings still appears to be sidelined by his own bureaucrats over the deal which will see the Government hand over $7 million to the US Hancock group to protect rainforest from logging in the Strzeleckis.
His own head of Department, Peter Harris has apparently said that he will make the decision (not the Minister) even though the agreement has been Government policy since before the last election. There is no 'decision' left to be made - the community is waiting for the decision to be implemented. The deal which involved management of areas known as the 'Cores and Links' was announced as part of the Government's election plaform, but apparently Peter Harris doesn't care.
Neither does the Gippsland Regional Manager of the Departnment of Sustainability and Environment who has openly said that he will not allow the policy to be implemented.
You'd wonder how these guys keep their jobs - unless of course Government policy has changed and the Minister can't be bothered to tell anyone!

Tags: hancock, logging, rainforest, strzeleckis

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Posted at: 07:57 AM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink