Money shuffle: Anti-logging activists put $336,000 out of court’s reach

An anti-logging group has shifted funds out of its accounts just weeks before mounting legal action against VicForests.

Campaigner: Environment East Gippsland co-ordinator Jill Redwood at her Goongerah home. Picture: Sarah Hudson

Anti-logging campaigners Environment East Gippsland have admitted diverting $336,000 into a trust fund just three weeks before commencing legal action against VicForests, which will stop the money being used to cover any court-awarded costs if it lost the case.

Records submitted to the Supreme Court last week show EEG transferred its money into an Australian Communities Foundation sub-fund - Gippsland Forest Keepers - on April 9 last year and then initiated legal action against VicForests on May 11.

Once locked away in the sub-fund, the money could only be released back to EEG on the approval of its trustees and “limited to one grant per annum”.

The trustees of the sub-fund are EEG co-ordinator Jill Redwood, the group’s treasurer Trevor Coon and Victorian Greens Party founder Linda Parlane.

During cross-examination in the Supreme Court last week Ms Redwood was asked: “you appreciated, didn’t you, that money would not be available to pay VicForests’ costs” if EEG lost the case?

Ms Redwood answered “that was probably something that was a consequence of it, yes”.

Asked again by VicForests’ lawyer: “you knew it to be a consequence at the time, didn’t you?, Ms Redwood said “You would have to think so, yes”.

Victorian Forest Products Association chief executive Deb Kerr said the “testimony from Ms Redwood shows the lengths that environmental groups will go to avoid their responsibilities as part of the litigation process”.

“The group and its members should be held personally accountable to pay for the litigation they run, including any costs orders made by the Courts,” she said.

EEG’s actions follow revelations Agriculture Minister Mary-Anne Thomas recently told VicForests to back off taking legal action to recover $2m in court-ordered costs from another anti-logging group, MyEnvironment.

Asked if she was concerned at EEG squirelling away funds, Ms Thomas’ office said “as legal proceedings are ongoing, it is not appropriate to comment at this time”.

The Weekly Times contacted Ms Redwood for further comment last week, but she did not respond.

EEG and Kinglake Friends of the Forests sought and gained injunctions from Justice Richards last December blocking VicForests and its contractors from harvesting any East Gippsland and the Central Highlands native forest coupes that are within 240m of greater glider sightings.

At the time 10 harvest and haulage contracting crews were left without work in the lead-up to Christmas, as VicForests struggled to find new coupes.

But government survey teams told The Weekly Times they were finding greater gliders within 240m of every second coupe, and even when they did sign off on a clear site environmentalists were then reporting sightings.

“I was stood down from a coupe recently because a sighting that was made five years ago,” Taggerty-based contractor Mick Johnston said. “I’m sick of going backwards.”

The ongoing uncertainty over access to coupes, protester interruptions and the latest injunctions have led Mr Johnston to abandon an industry that he loves.

“I’ve snatched it,” he said. “I had no intention of retiring, but it’s f***.”

“VicForests are doing their best, but shutdowns and the low volumes (of saw logs) mean we’re losing workers.”

Normally about 6000ha of coupes are harvested each year. But that area has now dropped to 3000ha and VicForests records show its contractors were able to harvest only 213,000 cubic metres of saw logs in the eight months to the end of February, compared to 376,433 cubic metres in 2020-21.

Meanwhile survey results on the population of greater gliders in Victoria are showing it is almost as common as the urban brush tail possum.

An Arthur Rylah Institute survey estimated the total population of greater gliders across the Strathbogie Ranges was 69,000, finding 500 individuals within just three coupes.

“Overall, greater gliders occur at mean densities of two to four individuals per hectare across the study area,” the ARI team concluded.

While the legal battle continues, it appears Labor-party aligned government bureaucrats are doing all they can to block VicForests’ access to alternative supplies of timber.

VicForests has repeatedly tried to harvest 1000ha of fallen timber in the Wombat State Forest, which poses a major fire risk.

But The Weekly Times has been told DELWP bureaucrats have refused access to the timber, which will soon be of no value, given it was felled by last June’s storms.

“There’s 400 tonnes of logs per hectare on the ground in there,” one government source told The Weekly Times. “I know many of the people in FFMV (Forest Fire Management Victoria) are worried about it.”

It appears DELWP bureaucrats have also stepped in to stop VicForests crews from undertaking regeneration burns on harvested coupes, forcing them to use mechanical disturbance techniques that are three to four times more expensive.

Last month The Weekly Times revealed long-term Labor loyalists had 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, including:

DJPR Forestry and Climate Change policy and regulation executive director Nathan Lambert, who is the Australian Labor Party’s former assistant national secretary, a member of its Geelong West branch and the ALP’s candidate for Preston.

DELWP forest policy director Lindsay Rayner is another long-term member of the ALP, joining the Northcote branch in 2003. He was a forestry adviser to former Environment Minister Gavin Jennings.

DJPR’s Forest Industry Strategy group Tim Sonnreich, who held the position from December 2018 to April 2020, is a long-time active member of the ALP’s Brunswick branch and now works as Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio’s chief of staff.

The Weekly Times is not suggesting any of these departmental staff have behaved inappropriately.