Parks Victoria quietly cuts junior ranger events in eastern Victoria

Families in East Gippsland and surrounds have been left “bitterly disappointed” by the axing of a beloved school holiday program.

While children in Melbourne enjoy another round of junior rangers events these July school holidays, the program has been cut across eastern Victoria.

Parks Victoria has dumped its junior rangers program in eastern Victoria, cutting regional families off from a service it continues to run in bushland and along the coast close to Melbourne.

A search for junior ranger events on the Parks Victoria website shows “there are no records to display” for eastern Victoria.

In contrast, a search of the Melbourne area yields 38 junior rangers events over two weeks during the July school holidays.

Parks Victoria's junior rangers website shows “no records to display” for events in Eastern Victoria.

Lakes Entrance grandmother Fiona Owen said there had been no events over summer, and now she faced another round of school holidays with the grandkids, who had relished junior ranges events in the past.

She said last year the children enjoyed junior ranger tours of the Eagle Point silt jetties and Cape Conran rock pools.

But when the 71-year-old grandmother first contacted Parks Victoria in January to ask why the program had been cut, with the government’s customer service officer responding with an email stating “we have a reduced program this summer due to ranger availability in the field.

“Generally, a JR (junior ranges) activity can be implemented in the parks areas (that) have capacity to do so.”

Ms Owen said her family was “bitterly disappointed with Parks Victoria, given it’s so important to engage young people in our environment, given they are our future custodians of this country”.

Fiona Owen is “bitterly disappointed” with Parks Victoria over the axing of junior rangers events in eastern Victoria.

Last October The Weekly Times reported Parks Victoria was forced to cut back 51 services, from feral pest control to junior rangers, following staff and budget cuts.

A copy of Parks Victoria’s confidential Operations Service Catalogue showed it had cut the number of “must do” services to 60, with the remaining 51 classified as “could do if resources permit”, “only do if tied funded” or “stop/pause”.

When quizzed about the impact a Parks Victoria spokesman initially responded by stating it had just advertised for 12 new rangers.

However the list of positions shows seven of the new ranger positions are to be located in Melbourne, two in Geelong, and one each in Wangaratta and the Grampians, with just one at Bairnsdale in East Gippsland.

The East Gippsland tourism, businesses and the wider community are already struggling, after being hit with the 2019-20 bushfires, Covid lockdowns and major delays in Parks Victoria rebuilding burnt out assets.

Victorian Nationals East Gippsland MP Tim Bull said the government assured him last year that the assets would be rebuilt and there would be no cuts to Parks Victoria’s frontline services.

“(Yet) here we are with no junior rangers program operating in the east,” Mr Bull said, despite the government telling East Gippslanders they would “walk with us every step of the way”.

Parks Victoria chief executive Lee Miezis responded to publication of this article by committing to “restore Junior Ranger programs in eastern Victoria for the September school holiday.”

Originally published as Parks Victoria quietly cuts junior ranger events in eastern Victoria