September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Morwell River East Branch. Allotment 57 Parish of Wonyip. Ex Australian Paper Plantations Leasehold, which Hancock purchased the logging rights for in 2001. This site contained 33 year old Eucalyptus Regans. This area contains a large tract of regionally significant cool temperate rainforest. These coupes were logged in June/July 2005, about three months after Smartwood conducted an Forest Stewardship Council audit. Prior to this audit Hancock had deliberately inflamed tension with local stakeholders by logging sites of state botanical significance at Rytons Junction, had deliberately logged within the Cores and Links Rainforest Reserve which the company publicly announced in October 2004 and had logged within meters of stands of cool temperate rainforest, leaving in some cases no buffers to protect the rainforest against the impacts of myrtle wilt, fire and windthrow. Hancock had apparently promised the FSC audit team that buffers of 40 metres would be implemented on cool temperate rainforest after the March audit. This statement was a falsehood as less than 3 months later Hancock were back to their old tricks.
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Morwell River East Branch. Allotment 57 Parish of Wonyip. Ex Australian Paper Plantations Leasehold, which Hancock purchased the logging rights for in 2001. The southern portion of this logging coupe, logged in June/July 2005 has rainforest buffers of 15 metres. This could well be the worst case of rainforest mismanagement in Victoria and the operation has been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council!!! Much of this coupe should never have been logged at all.
In June 2004, the FSC certifier Smartwood conducted an audit of Hancock's operations in the Strzelecki Ranges. Hancock was issued with a new Corrective Action Requests which was;
"CAR 1 -2004: The Rainforest Management BMP (Best Management Practice) shall be completed by 1 March 2005 including an independent peer review and further stakeholder input. The current accepted practice of stakeholder involvement in boundary marking is to continue with coupes where HVP/GRP harvests plantations adjacent to any areas of Cool or Warm Temperate Rainforest.
Observation 1 -2004: Given stakeholder concerns and limitations, GRP should explore short-term alternative mechanisms for ensuring that it can obtain stakeholder input into the design of rainforest buffers and related management activities until such time that the Rainforest Management BMP is completed and practices dictated by the new BMP are fully internalized by HVP/GRP staff."
(HVP=Hancock Victorian Plantations. GRP=Grand Ridge Plantations (a subsidiary of HVP).
No stakeholder involvement in boundary marking has occurred and local stakeholders have not been privy to the Rainforest Management BMP.
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Morwell River East Branch. Allotment 57 Parish of Wonyip and Agricultural College Reserve. Ex Australian Paper Plantations Leasehold, which Hancock purchased the logging rights for in 2001. At the north west boundary on this coupe buffers of 40 to 50 metres have been granted.
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Morwell River East Branch. Allotment 57 Parish of Wonyip. Ex Australian Paper Plantations Leasehold, which Hancock purchased the logging rights for in 2001. Rainforest buffers on the significant western gully have been granted buffers of only 20 metres in places. Hancock's EVC (Ecological Vegetation Class) mapper had mapped this area as cool temperate rainforest, but Hancock management have reduced buffers to beyond minimal.
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Morwell River East Branch. Allotment 57 Parish of Wonyip. Ex Australian Paper Plantations Leasehold, which Hancock purchased the logging rights for in 2001. The southern end of the coupe where buffers on cool temperate rainforest were 15 metres in places. Once logged, site preperation teams also enter the coupe, burning refuse and applying herbicides. Are these appropriate activities in cool temperate rainforest buffers?
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Morwell River East Branch. Allotment 57 Parish of Wonyip. Ex Australian Paper Plantations Leasehold, which Hancock purchased the logging rights for in 2001. The pink boundary tape is only 4 metres from young regenerating Myrtle Beech at this location.
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Morwell River East Branch. Allotment 57 Parish of Wonyip. Ex Australian Paper Plantations Leasehold, which Hancock purchased the logging rights for in 2001. Tree fall into area near cool temperate rainforest, highlighting concerns of windthrow. Myrtle Beech trees can be wounded by windthrow, allowing the airborne pathogen of the disease Myrtle Wilt to enter the tree and eventually kill it and the entire stand.
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Morwell River East Branch. Allotment 57 Parish of Wonyip. Ex Australian Paper Plantations Leasehold, which Hancock purchased the logging rights for in 2001. Logging within cool temperate rainforest buffers at another location within this plantation. At this location the 20 metre buffer had been mysteriously reduced to 10 metres, as rainforest species other than Myrtle Beech were observed.
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Morwell River East Branch. Allotment 57 Parish of Wonyip. Ex Australian Paper Plantations Leasehold, which Hancock purchased the logging rights for in 2001. Bristlefern is a cool temperate rainforest indicator species. Logging occurred within close proximity to this location.
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Morwell River East Branch. Allotment 57 Parish of Wonyip. Ex Australian Paper Plantations Leasehold, which Hancock purchased the logging rights for in 2001. Mother spleenwort, another indicator species for cool temperate rainforest. Logging had occurre within 10 metres of this species.
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Smiths Creek catchment. Agricultural College Reserve Leasehold. Parish of Jumbuk. Recent logging of 29 year old Eucalyptus Regnans by Hancock, established in 1976 by Australian Paper Manufacturers. Much of this coupe will end up with PaperlinX and be converted into Reflex Copy Paper.
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Smiths Creek catchment. Agricultural College Reserve Leasehold. Parish of Jumbuk. Poor drainage where a logging track had been punched through a drainage line.
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Smiths Creek catchment. Agricultural College Reserve Leasehold. Parish of Jumbuk. Same gully crossing, showing head of the gully. Also note another logging track at the head of the gully.
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Smiths Creek catchment. Agricultural College Reserve Leasehold. Parish of Jumbuk. At the drainage line. Dark colour to water likely to be Tannin.
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Smiths Creek catchment. Agricultural College Reserve Leasehold. Parish of Jumbuk. Very bad drainage at this location.
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Albert River catchment, just off Yarram-Madalya Road. Recent pine logging on steep slopes.
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Albert River catchment, just off Yarram-Madalya Road. Poor drainage on logging coupe within pine plantation.
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Antonio Creek/Albert River catchment, just off Yarram-Madalya Road. Recent pine logging occurring over a large proportion of this catchment. These creeks feed into the Nooramunga Marine Reserve near Alberton. Pine plantations extend for about 5km along Antonio Creek.
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Albert River catchment, near Welsh's Road (Albert River Road). Logging tracks showing high erosion potential. Secondary logging tracks such as this are not covered by the Code of Forest Practice and yet are high erosion hazards.
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Franklin River catchment, near York Road. Dumped tyres near the site of Victoria's largest ever environmental crime. According to the August 10 Herald Sun; "A Father and son ripped $12 million worth of ferns and logs from native forests...they used bulldozers, chainsaws and excavators to plunder soft tree ferns and hardwood logs...They dumped old tyres and oil-filled drums, destroyed surrounding vegetation and damaged nearby creeks... partly dammed the nearby Franklin River with logs."
September 2005 - Strzelecki Ranges: Franklin River catchment, near York Road. Logged old growth near the site of Victoria's largest ever environmental crime. Illegal Logging and fern removal occurred at this location.
Sunday Age October 2, 2005 Super-koala habitat faces bulldozing by Claire Miller
Critical habitat supporting the so-called Strzelecki "super-koala" and endangered powerful owls is to be bulldozed as part of a controversial road-widening project in South Gippsland.
Several hundred trees, many home to koalas and with hollows suitable for nesting owls and other wildlife, will be lost, despite consultants warning the Latrobe City Council that the damp forest habitat is virtually irreplaceable in a region largely cleared of native vegetation.
The local member for Morwell, Brendan Jenkins, is appealing to Environment Minister John Thwaites for an 11th-hour reprieve after local conservationists lost their case in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Latrobe Council wants to widen Budgeree Road so that logging trucks servicing plantations can pass each other. Trucks now travel one way down the road and return via another route. Budgeree Road is also a tourist drive to Tarra Bulga National Park.
The tribunal initially raised strong objections to the project, near Boolarra, in the face of evidence that the council took little account of the vegetation affected, that traffic volumes did not justify the scale of the works, and that a redesign could save most of the trees. Then, in a surprise turnaround, it approved the project last month with minor amendments.
Strzelecki koalas are a genetically superior group that may hold the key to the species' long-term survival in Victoria. All other koalas in the state are descended from a handful of individuals transferred to French Island more than a century ago, a few years before koalas were hunted to near-extinction on the mainland. The French Island colony was used to repopulate the state, but inbreeding is now becoming apparent. The Strzelecki koalas, however, appear to be a remnant of the original and genetically diverse mainland population.
The roadside forest is rare in its own right, being of "very high conservation significance". This category has legislative protection under the Native Vegetation Management framework, and can be cleared only under exceptional circumstances. The loss of hollow-bearing trees is also listed as a threat under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act.
Consultants from Biosis Research told the Latrobe Council it would be difficult to find other damp forest areas that could offset the loss of roadside remnants.
Susie Zent, from Friends of Gippsland Bush, said VCAT had set conditions for the roadworks based on a mistaken classification by the Department of Sustainability and Environment as to the vegetation's significance. She said the VCAT decision could be set aside if the department admitted to an error of judgement and requested amendments to its permit conditions.
Latrobe's chief executive officer, Paul Buckley, said he expected VicRoads to sign off the final plans within three or four weeks. He said the additional width was needed to improve safety.
A spokesman for Mr Thwaites said the department was waiting for final details from the council, particularly in relation to offset measures. "Offset measures are required to ensure there is no overall loss of areas that have ecological significance," he said.