Gippsland Environment Group Inc
Lobbying against environmental threats on the unceded lands of the GunaiKurnai, Yaitmathang, Ngarigo and Bidwell Peoples
Logging News and Media
Do 'fuel breaks' stack up for us and our forests?
If fuel breaks will have a limited effect on stopping fire spotting and may potentially contribute to crown fires, why are they being constructed? One reason is that firebreak construction provides a source of timber for the native forest logging industry
Chris Taylor, David Lindenmayer | Pearls and Irritations August 31, 2026
Scrutiny over WA government's decision to 'eco-thin' landmark South West forests
Professor David Lindenmayer disputed claims the practice could correct the history of logging and dense forest regrowth "That's rubbish, that is not consistent with the science on thinning," he said. "Temperatures are increased on the forest floor, there's more logging slash or debris that's left on the ground, which acts as fuels and it's windier and drier. All the ingredients that you need to make fires worse are created when you thin a forest.”Neve Brissenden | ABC South West WA 25 August 2026
Forestry Corporation avoids environmental protections by calling logging 'road maintenance'
The Forestry Corporation of NSW has avoided strict environmental protection for threatened species after categorising an operation that involved logging trees as "road maintenance"
Angela Heathcote | ABC NEWS 21 August 2026
Environmental groups launch push to make native forest protection a national political issue
Environmental groups are launching a coordinated push to make native forest protection a national political issue, arguing communities can no longer be left to fight logging and clearing “one forest at a time”.
Tegan George | The Point 20 Aug 2026
First historic meeting since last century to end native forest logging and clearing
Gippsland Environment Group signs on to the Forest Protection Principles, a shared roadmap to protect and restore native forests. National environment and climate groups with regional and grassroots forest organisations collaborate on a national campaign.
Australian Conservation Foundation
Logging and the slow disappearance of Australia’s large old trees
Large old trees are among the most important structures in native forests, in Australia and around the world. They store disproportionately large amounts of carbon relative to small, young trees, and they provide the hollows that hundreds of animal species depend on. A single large old tree can take two or three centuries to grow
I was surveilled for defending Victoria’s forests. There’s been no apology, and still no accountability
When ABC’s Four Corners aired ‘Timber Turmoil’ about the native logging industry, many were shocked by what they saw: billions in public subsidies, murky financial arrangements, environmental destruction, and an industry kept alive long after its economic case had collapsed. But for a small few of us, there was no shock. Only a familiar ache
Following the money: the unfinished transition away from native forest logging
Released alongside Timber Turmoil, a new report from Environmental Justice Australia raises serious questions about why more than $1.5 billion in public funding was spent on a transition away from native forest logging, but native forest logging and processing is still happening in Victoria.
Timber Turmoil
As native forest logging ends in some states, we investigate where the industry is heading next. Jessica Longbottom examines the flow of timber across state borders and the growing battle over the future of native forestry.
We have the proof that logging makes Tasmania’s forests more flammable
We took advantage of a natural experiment in 2019, when a severe bushfire burned through a research site spanning old growth wet Tasmanian forests and logged areas of regrowth, giving us access to data before and after the fires. In our new research, we show regrowth does indeed burn more intensely than mature forests.
David Bowman. The Conversation | April 2, 2026
Victoria’s mountain ash forests naturally thin their trees. So why do it with machines?
In its new forest plan, the Victorian government has funded a “healthy forests” program. This will likely entail reducing the number of trees in the forest and increasing the space between trees. This plan could lead to extensive mechanical thinning in the state’s forests.
Elle Bowd and David Lindenmayer TheConversation | February 2026
Analysis of the Timber and fibre Strategy
This document is an analysis of Australia’s Timber Fibre Strategy. It has been undertaken to inform the debate around the development of Forest Policy in Australia and to provide a counter weight to the self-serving nature of this Strategy document.
Why native forest logging is the ‘zombie’ industry that won’t die
The timber mills that haven’t shut their doors continue to process native hardwood timbers – now fed by private landholders felling forests on their properties, and the government’s 300 per cent expansion of bushfire “fuel reduction” targets.
Bianca Hall THE AGE September 13, 2024
Logging by another name – ‘Forest Gardening’
Although the Victorian Government announced it was halting native forest logging in January 2024, several kinds of logging are continuing in the state. One of these kinds of logging is known by another name: “Forest Gardening”.
Associate Professor Phil Zylstra's response on X (Twitter) to Forests Foundation
"Dja Dja Wurrung traditional owners are concerned that land has been returned to them dense with young trees instead of widely-spaced older trees. Foresters are telling them the widely-spaced forest can be brought back by mechanical thinning. Here's the issue"
08 August 2024
Forests Foundation accused of 'greenwashing on steroids'
The former CEO of VicForests has teamed up with other powerful industry bosses to set up a new organisation called 'The Healthy Forests Foundation' which would hire loggers and logging lobbyists from VicForests and elsewhere
08 August 2024
Forests Foundation accused of 'greenwashing on steroids'
The 'Healthy Forests Foundation' name sounds like an organisation aiming to save forests. But critics say it's greenwashing on steroids... with the board comprised of some of the country's most powerful loggers.
08 August 2024
Has logging really stopped in VIC?
What the death of an endangered glider tells us.
By itself, the death of one glider would be sad. But its death speaks to a larger problem. Three kinds of logging are continuing in Victoria’s forests, for fuel breaks, salvage logging after windstorms, and logging on private land.
The Conversation: Lindenmayer, Taylor, Ashman
20 May 2024
Devastating find at bottom of the tree despite repeated warnings
Conservationists have called the find 'disgraceful' and called on the state government's loggers to cease their operations.
Coalition of environmentalists calls on Premier Jacinta Allan to abolish VicForests
"VicForests has systematically breached the public's trust and abjectly failed Victorians on every measure — economically, socially and environmentally"
It's time to wind up VicForests
Sixty environment, community and legal organisations have signed onto a letter calling to wind up VicForests.
October 2023
State logging agency VicForests deregistered
State owned logging company VicForests has been deregistered as a government business according to a government gazette, as of September 5 2023. Joint media release - Victorian Forest Alliance and Friends of the Earth Melbourne
PARK WATCH Article June 2023
Victorian National Parks Association Executive Director Matt Ruchel asks if rogue logging will become the next forest-eating monster now we’ve (almost) banished VicForests
An extraordinary victory that was decades in the making: the Victorian government has announced native forest logging will end by 1 January 2024.
This is only possible thanks to the countless citizen scientists, community groups, forest activists and Traditional Owners who have fought tirelessly to protect native forests.
Legals summary by Environment Justice Australia
June 2023
Victoria’s rapid exit from native forest logging is welcome – and long overdue
By the end of the year, Victoria’s trouble-plagued native forest industry will end – six years ahead of schedule. The state’s iconic mountain ash forests and endangered wildlife will at last be safe from chainsaws. And there will be no shortage of wood – there’s more than enough plantation timber to fill the gap.
David Lindenmayer and Chris Taylor | The Conversation May 23, 2023
Office of the Conservation Regulator acts on our survey report
The presence of Alpine Tree Frogs will trigger a 50Ha exclusion zone over forest scheduled for logging in the headwaters of the Little Dargo River.
Activists have defied what they say is are "draconian" Victorian laws, taking to different bush areas statewide to survey for protected species on the same day the legislation came into effect.
‘Protection zones’ for endangered possums already logged, environment groups say
Forest areas the Andrews government recently set aside to protect the endangered greater glider had been logged before they were gazetted, providing scant additional habitat for the rare possum.
The Vanishing Old Growth forests
The claim that 90,000 hectares of old growth had been protected from logging did not match the reality and zones designated as old growth on the map the Andrews government released continued to be logged.
Sixty endangered Greater gliders found in Victorian forests tagged for logging
Night surveys by citizen scientists across the state revealed gliders, which could trigger court injunction to prevent logging in 12 areas. The greater glider – one of the world’s largest gliding mammals – was listed as endangered earlier this year, only six years after first appearing on the national list of threatened species.
Citizen scientists find 60 endangered Greater Gliders in mass survey effort across Victoria
Citizen scientists from community groups across Victoria took part in a night of surveying for endangered Greater Gliders. Surveys were carried out from Toolangi, Black Range near Taggerty, Warburton in the Central Highlands, Alberton West in Gippsland, Colquhoun State Forest in East Gippsland, and Wombat State Forest in the Central West.
The Victorian Forest Alliance October 2022
Protecting Old Growth Forests
GunaiKurnai Country: While it may be an unconventional alliance, GunaiKurnai Elders, forest groups and High Plains graziers have united in a fight to protect the last old forests of East Gippsland. The message is clear END NATIVE FOREST LOGGING NOW.
VicForests and it's regulator, referred to the anti-corruption watchdog
Allegations reported by the ABC since 2018
The ABC has reported allegations VicForests engaged in "spying" and illegal logging on public land. A Greens MP has asked IBAC and the ombudsman to investigate. Another group has also alleged corrupt conduct by the regulator and Victoria's environment department
The ABC reveals alarming evidence that logged forests aren’t always being grown back, undermining the industry’s claim to sustainability.
Sections of logged state forests have been classified as ‘regenerated’ despite not being so — and have been handed back to the public as little more than weed-infested fields.
After the Logging Report
Governments justify native forest logging by promising that they regrow forests “like for like”. This promise is used to justify exempting native forest logging from federal environment laws. This report presents new evidence that contradicts these claims. It is based on data obtained under Freedom of Information laws and ground-checks of logged areas in the public native forests of eastern Victoria. Full report by Margaret Blakers
Lidia Thorpe Time to Heal Country
“I invite everyone, whether or not you are First Nations, to stand together and demand that our leaders do more to heal Country, to ensure the air that we breathe and water we drink is clean and healthy and to stop selling out to billionaire and corporations at the expense of the rest of us”
Graziers and Greenies unite in ‘drive to save the forest'
‘I’m coming on 73, and I’ll be in front of
a bulldozer if logging starts.’ Cattle grazier Ray Anderson. This is a story of unlikely alliances: a family of alpine cattle graziers and environmentalists joining forces for the first time in an attempt to stop logging in Victoria’s high country.
Dismay as VicForests allows logging of unburnt forest in East Gippsland for TAFE training
Publicly-owned forest agency VicForests has allowed an unburnt coupe at Nowa Nowa, four hours east of Melbourne, to be logged by Gippsland TAFE students for training.
It's like killing us off
“The State needs to allow conversation with Traditional Owners who are trying to protect country, not just the registered Aboriginal parties. They need to open the room up and we need have all the experts in the room. We have experts who tell us there are gliders in there. We’ve got experts that say this type of logging is not good, so let’s get them all in the room.”
Logging Review could come too late
The Morrison government has given the green light to a 12-month review of logging operations in Victoria, but community members say its findings will come too late to stop environmental damage and fail to scrutinise NSW forestry.
Nippon Paper urged to scrap VIC timber
Environment groups urge Nippon Paper to scrap Victorian timber from supply chain
The Guardian 26 June 2020
Injunction again stops logging
VicForests, has again had a legal injunction halt its operations, after the Supreme Court heard allegations it had breached logging regulations in 14 coupes in the Central Highlands
VicForests says experiment 'very likely' to kill threatened glider, continues research
A government-owned logging company is conducting a controversial experiment expected to kill native animals that are already heading toward extinction