The Rubicon Forest Protection Group welcomes Minister D'Ambrosio's decision to abandon the draft revision of the Code of Forest Practice following a storm of protest from a wide range of forest conservation groups.

The draft revision of the Code was commissioned following an independent review of timber harvesting in native forests in Victoria. The review was to be conducted in two stages by the Department of Environment, Lands, Water and Planning (DELWP).  The first stage was supposed to resolve a number of specific omissions and ambiguities on an interim basis before proceeding to a more comprehensive review.

Instead of following this brief, the Department proceeded to a quite radical revision including removing a major element of the Code (the ‘Planning Standards’) and deregulating key provisions regarding forest biodiversity.  A further announcement from the Minister is expected, explaining how she plans to proceed with the promised review of the Code.

Forest conservation groups remain fiercely critical of the State Government’s broader policy settings on logging in native forests which demand the government’s logging agency, VicForests, to harvest areas of forest far in excess of what is ecologically sustainable and complete discount the claims of other would-be users of Victoria’s forests (tourism, recreation, etc).

Mr Ken Deacon, the Convenor of the Rubicon Forest Protection Group, said today:

“Saturation logging in the Rubicon Forest, combined with limited regeneration, has produced a very degraded forest. This degradation is reflected in horrific visual scars; the on-going loss of threatened species; and a loss of ecological resilience (of particular concern in the face of global warming).”

“It is widely recognised that within a few years the remaining high quality ash timber will be completely exhausted but, nonetheless, the Andrews Government is requiring VicForest to drive continued aggressive logging of the small patches of forest which remain. ”

“Our only hope is for local communities and for metropolitan Melbourne to recognise what is at stake and to demand the Andrews Government cease immediately its vandalism in the lungs of Melbourne” Mr Deacon said.

(RFPG media release, 24 Sept 2019)