Environment East Gippsland

Yes, we’re still alive and kicking at https://eastgippsland.net.au/.

"Legal update for Gliders... Wildlife Act re-write... Protesters halt log traffic for 5 hours ... Giant tree found – 14m around ... NSW parliament unanimous against biomass burning..." Read the details inside.

East Gippsland: VicForests is being very cooperative in giving Environment East Gippsland (EEG) new grounds for legal action. Not only had they just commenced logging in an area which EEG believes is a rich stand of forest for rare wildlife, but bold as brass, their contractors yet again cleared right to the edge of a patch of rainforest leaving no buffer. This, after all the bad media they received when found to have destroyed rainforest near Hensleigh Creek earlier this year.

A logger recently posted this nasty message to forest activists on a day when they were meeting to negotiate the protection of giant trees.

Environment East Gippsland (EEG) has won its fourth successful legal case, in a remarkable series for this David vs the Goliath of logging and destroying habitat. Over 2000 hectares have been set aside for owl habitat in a legal win for the owls. This was EEG's fourth Court case challenging the government's non-adherence to its own environment laws and it was settled on 17 July 2015, in favour of the owls!

How many more outrageous options for our state’s (planet’s) most valuable climate moderators and wildlife arks can they come up with?! Whole logs to China now. Not even processed (value added!) into woodchips. Has VicForests also got Daniel Andrews by the short and curlies? In The Age today… http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victorian-forests-bound-for-china-under-secret-andrews-government-rescue-plan-20150712-gian0v.html Discussion on ABC Gippsland’s facebook page … https://www.facebook.com/ABCGippsland/timeline

Jill Redwood, as coordinator of Environment East Gippsland, conducted a landmark environmental court case that saw her group awarded damages against the Government Forestry corporation, VicForests, who were told to conduct proper investigations for the presence of threatened species in areas they logged and to design and enact plans to safeguard them according to the law. Three years later the Giant Trees Walk on Brown Mountain, which EEG had created in order to develop awareness of the rape of East Gippsland's forests, has been destroyed by persons unknown, equipped with heavy equipment and chainsaws.

Comments made against EEG last October have resulted in Minister Peter Walsh stepping back and making a public apology today, 19 March 2014. The apology to Environment East Gippsland was published on his parliamentary website. Peter Walsh is the Deputy Leader of the Victorian Nationals and Minister for Agriculture, Security and Water.

AS I WRITE, the bulldozers and chainsaws are brutalising another superb stand of ancient forest not far from where I am just out of Orbost, south-eastern Victoria. (This article is an extract from one on the ABC. See inside for link.)

A rally was held today on the steps of Parliament House in Melbourne " to protest against new laws proposed by the Napthine government which are undeniably bad news for forests.

"Oakeshott has been very vocal about the need to "challenge the power of money in politics" yet he seems to have been strongly influenced by the desperate native forest logging industry to support forest furnaces. We are very disappointed with his actions on this." (Prue Acton, Australian Forests and Climate Alliance.)

VicForests must this week pay Environment East Gippsland $630,000 in legal costs which it incurred defending its wrong action in planning to destroy wildlife habitat forest in Australia. This, and a pending case also mentioned in this article, is a welcome indication of independence in Victoria's judiciary, despite wide corruption of the democratic system in Victoria and the rest of Australia.

As a result of a peculiarity in the way Government works, the motion to call native forest furnace electricity ‘renewable energy’, has been sneakily placed on the 'non-controversial' list. That means that unless the Labor Government decides to force a vote, within days this back-door change in renewable energy policy could sneak through Parliament without there even being a vote!

We were successful today! In fact even more so than we expected. The injunction phase was skipped and we’re going straight to trial now. It’ll be heard in April rather than Sept/Oct. as we were planning. This has to be good for us and the forests.

“Recently VicForests was caught out exporting whole logs, before that it was planned destruction of endangered wildlife habitat and currently the Ombudsman is investigating VicForests’ due processes." The industry is "in decline, with jobs on the line as the supply of trees dries up."

Radio program on the law and forests, featuring Jill Redwood and Slater and Gordon lawyer. Register for the Forests Forever Ecology Camp 22nd-25th April. How Japanese disasters have impacted on woodchipping industry.

The ALP’s 2006 election promise was to protect ‘the last significant stands of old growth planned for logging’. But environment groups say that most of what has recently been identified for protecton was either in existing protection zones, had already been logged or was degraded forest unwanted for logs or woodchips anyway.

Environment East Gippsland's

Inaugural Melbourne Meeting.

6pm Wednesday 12th of May.
2nd Floor, Kindness House,
288 Brunswick St, FITZROY.

Please RSVP to [email protected]

The big court case between
Environment East Gippsland (EEG) and
the Victorian Government finally begins on Monday at 1.30pm at the Sale Court House.
The media will be there at 1pm and it would be really great it if everyone who is able to be there is as well.

Who is braver or more dedicated than the activists who protect our forests?

Victoria, Australia the World owe an incalculable debt to Jill Redwood and the other members and supporters of Environment East Gippsland. Every tree saved is also a bastion for democracy and freedom, against the malignant march of concrete burocracy and the development lobby who would turn every old giant into toilet paper if they could.

Brown Mountain - Historic win for Victorian forests hangs on funding indemnity

Monday 14th September

Ed: Shakespeare wrote that the quality of mercy is not strained but falls from heaven like the rain ...
Not much rain and not much justice in Victoria, if you don't have money...
BUT there is still hope and this case is too important to lose: