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VEAC’s report discredited by forestry experts

Victoria’s forestry experts have savaged the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council’s (VEAC) draft proposals for the state’s Central West Forests, suggesting the agency no longer provides the legally required independent advice on natural resource management. The Victorian division of the Institute of Foresters of Australia (IFA) delivered its hard-hitting findings in its submission to the VEAC’s draft proposals. Source: Philip Hopkins for Timberbiz

Sadly, the draft proposals for the Central West forests “add fuel to long-standing concerns” that VEAC was no longer living up to its purpose, the Victorian IFA said.

This was to provide “independent and strategic advice relating to the protection and sustainable management of Victoria’s environment and natural resources”.

“The IFA submits, however, from our collective wealth of experience in forest management, that most of the VEAC recommendations are unwarranted because many or most environmental threats require active management and will not be mitigated by such a simplistic action as changing the land tenure,” the IFA said.

The IFA, founded in 1935, has about 900 forestry scientists, practitioners and managers with professional and practical experience in forest and fire management, including flora and fauna conservation. In Victoria, foresters have managed the state’s forests for more than 100 years.

Highlights of the Victorian IFA division’s submission are:

*The draft proposals, in regards to vegetation health, do not explain why the current mix of public land tenures must be changed. VEAC admits that State forests such as the Wombat and Wellsford are in good condition.

  • VEAC does not show how more conservation reserves will do anything to overcome perceived threats, such as climate change and unnatural fire regimes.
  • Unwarranted emphasis is placed on historical Ecological Vegetation Classes (EVCs) to justify placing large areas of forest in so-called ‘protection’ areas.
  • The draft proposals ignore VEAC’s statutory requirement to develop meaningful plans for ‘ecologically sustainable development’, legally defined as being integral to community well-being.
  • There are no details about the socio-economic effects of the proposed changes before the public consultation phase. This information won’t be available until after the public consultation phase has ended, demonstrating “contempt for stakeholders”.
  • The proposals grossly overstate supposed community support for overturning the current mix of public land tenures, insulting the many opponents.
  • The draft proposals promote the ‘dumbing down’ of the national park concept, a process that unfortunately has been going on in Victoria for many years.

The Victorian IFA’s criticisms follow a trenchant critique of VEAC’s proposals by the Victorian Association of Forest Industries.

The IFA said VEAC proposed a massive decrease in the area of multi-use State forests from the current 56% to just 7% of the Central West Study Area, compared with a more than tripling of areas for conservation (22% to 72%). All existing National Parks and State Parks will be combined into one National Park.

The IFA said VEAC had unwarranted concerns about the vulnerability of State forests to timber harvesting. Timber harvesting was now only allowed in a very small part of State forest.

“Yet … VEAC’s draft proposals paper creates a false impression … that all State forests are subject to ‘destructive clear-felling’ and nothing but park reservation will save them from this fate,” the IFA submission said.

“This illustrates a fundamental flaw in the approach taken by VEAC in determining future land use.”

So-called threatened flora and fauna species had survived quite successfully and even flourished under State forest management.

The IFA said that although the Wombat State forest had been harvested at different intensities over the past 120-150 years, it was still a productive and valued forest for many uses. “That is, timber utilisation has clearly NOT led to any significant diminution of its values,” the IFA said.