2 & 3 Dec:
It looks like the Tallarook Forest has been saved from logging by VicForests.
On Friday 4 November, Justice Miranda Richards handed down a decision in the Supreme Court regarding the Kinglake Friends of the Forest case against VicForests - a case which aimed to protect the nationally endangered Greater Glider from logging activity in the Central Highlands, which includes the Tallarook Forest. Justice Richards found that
"VicForests had been conducting illegal logging for years, willfully ignoring the Precautionary Principle, choosing not to survey for the presence of Greater Gliders, and conducting clearfell logging which has been destroying the habitat of these gliders."
A week later, on 11 November, Justice Richards issued court orders to VicForests, mandating them to conduct thorough and systematic surveys for Greater Gliders in all proposed logging coupes, and across the whole of each coupe. All Greater Gliders detected will be required to have their home range protected from logging. On top of this, 60 per cent of the remaining harvestable area of a coupe should not be logged, and all streams will now have 50m on each side of the stream protected from logging. This included temporary waterways as well as permanently flowing streams.
The Supreme Court decisions impact on the Tallarook Forest.
What does this mean for our forests now, what for VicForests and what for our Tallarook Forest. Saved? Can VicForests be trusted...?
Paul Macgregor is a BEAM Committee member recently re-elected, and the leader in our campaign to Save The Tallarook Forest. Paul joins EarthChat this week to share some details and insights into the Court Decision.
We’ll also ask Paul about other BEAM activities in the Tallarook Forest coming up…including a walk with ecologist Karl Just this Saturday morning.
Listen up. EarthChat is back on air in a restricted capacity, and there’s lots to chat about.
EarthChat on your 103.9 Seymour FM.

Commentaires