D’Ambrosio fails to end legal lockup

Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio has refused to gazette greater gliders that could end the legal lockup of timber coupes.

VICTORIA’S timber industry leaders say Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio could end the legal lockup of native forests by spending $100 gazetting Greater Glider possum protections into the Code of Practice for Timber Production.

Victorian Forest Products Association chief executive Deb Kerr said the failure of the Minister to act, meant it had been left to the Supreme Court to decide what protections should be put in place.

Last December Supreme Court Justice Richards slapped injunctions on any coupe within 240m of a Greater Glider sighting, which has led to 90 per cent of the states Victorian Ash being locked up across the Central Highlands, East Gippsland and the Tambo region.

Yet protections under the Government’s 2019 Greater Glider Action Statement simply require that where five or more gliders are found per kilometre, during spotlight surveys, VicForests must “retain at least 40 per cent of the basal area of eucalypts across each timber harvesting coupe, prioritising live, hollow bearing trees”.

The Weekly Times understands VicForests has not only been adhering to the action statement protocol since it was first published four years ago, it has kept 40 per cent of coupes intact wherever three or more gliders are spotted per kilometre.

However in her ruling of last December Justice Richards dismissed the action statement stating: “unlike the Code, the action statement is not a legislative instrument”.

Justice Richards went on to state: “it is arguable that the prescription of 40 per cent of basal eucalypts in the action statement is not determinative of the level of habitat retention necessary to comply with the Precautionary Principle (within the code)”.

However Ms Kerr said that if the Minister gazetted the 40 per cent rule into the code, it would gained the legislative power that the court must recognise.

One industry leader said gazettal of the 40 per cent rule would stop the current court cases “in their tracks” and allow many coupes to be reopened.

“The industry is being held to ransom because the government has not codified the greater glider protections from the action plan,” Ms Kerr said. “It could be done for the cost of issuing it in the government gazette - $100.”

But Minister D’Ambrosio’s office said “protection of Greater Gliders is complex and any changes require proper assessment.”

“Victoria is obligated to implement a comprehensive review of the Code of Practice, along with a Threatened Species Risk Assessment.

“These processes are already underway. Once completed, we will make further changes to the Code of Practice, based on the latest scientific evidence and consultation with stakeholders.

The Weekly Times has previously reported on long-term Labor loyalists have been appointed to key forestry policy and regulation roles within the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions and Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning.

DELWP forest policy director Lindsay Rayner is another long-term member of the ALP and

DJPR Forestry and Climate Change policy and regulation executive director Nathan Lambert gained preselection as the ALP’s candidate for Preston last December.

Meanwhile timber mills across Victoria face a major sawlog shortage, if the current injunctions on coupes are not lifted by spring.