Salvage begins: Wombat Forests ticking fire bomb finally harvested

Traditional owners and VicForests have been allowed to start harvesting the “ticking time bomb” of thousands of windblown trees.

Reduced yield: Ten months of DELWP delays in salvaging windblown trees in the Wombat Forest means many of the smaller logs are already cracked, reducing saw log yields.

The Wombat Forest’s 500,000-tonne ticking fire bomb of windblown trees is finally being harvested, delivering desperately needed supplies of timber for Victorian saw mills and a royalty revenue stream for the region’s Dja Dja Wurrung traditional owners.

Harvest and haulage contractor Jim Greenwood started harvesting the first 2ha of what he estimates is 60ha of windblown timber in the forest, after almost 10 months of delays and threats to block VicForests’ attempts to access the windblown trees that came down in last June’s devastating storms.

Big trees: Jim Greenwood’s team stacks windblown logs, after local Dja Dja Wurrung traditional owners checked the site.

DELWP delays and legal injunctions brought about by environment groups have led to a major shortage of saw logs and put harvest and haulage crews out of work.

“I haven’t worked for four months,” Mr Greenwood said.

But now the logs he started salvaging from the Wombat Forest last Thursday will be trucked off to mills that were running short of timber, in East Gippsland and even to a mill at Mount Cole.

“There are quality big logs here,” Mr Greenwood said. “But we should have been here quicker, ‘cause the smaller ones are starting to crack.

“It’s going to affect yield and quality.”

VicForests’s attempts to broker an agreement with the Dja Dja Wurrung to harvest the windblown timber late last year was blocked by DELWP.

But in the end it is understood Premier Daniel Andrews intervened after the risk of leaving an estimated 500,000 tonnes of fallen trees on the forest floor was highlighted in The Weekly Times last month.

VicForests has since been able to enact a timber utilisation plan for areas in Dja Dja Wurrung country, with the profits it makes going to the traditional owners as royalties.

However The Weekly Times understands DELWP is still resisting timber salvaging in areas earmarked for inclusion in a new Wombat-Lerderderg National Park covering 44,698ha.