Environment groups walk out as loggers hijack government study to help solve Melbourne’s water crisis

The Wilderness Society (Victoria) Inc
Central Highlands Alliance
Environment East Gippsland

Media Release
11 July 2008     

Environment groups have walked out of a government Water White Paper process set up to investigate woodchipping and water yield in Melbourne’s water catchments.

Environment groups have been informed that ceasing logging of the catchments is no longer an option under consideration in the process.

“In its Water White Paper, the Victorian government committed to investigate phasing out logging in Melbourne’s catchments to protect water quality and increase supply. We are dismayed that the government has allowed this process to be hijacked by logging interests at the expense of over 3 million Melbournians”, said The Wilderness Society’s Victorian Forest Campaigner, Amelia Young.

“Instead of attempting to retrieve the process, the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) chose to issue a media statement defending the destruction of catchments for woodchips, rather than moving the industry into plantations,” said Ms Young.

“What government in its right mind would allow logging of water catchments? The Brumby government knows it’s a problem yet they won’t act,” said Sarah Rees from The Central Highlands Alliance.

“The selfishness of the logging industry is spectacular; it’s demanding the right to log and woodchip water catchments and deprive Melbournians of water security. It is appalling that ceasing logging in our catchments has been excluded as an option in the process when we know that logging reduces water supplies by 50%, and that logged forests take 150 years to produce the same amount of water as they did before industry disturbance,” Ms Rees continued.

“We need a 20 year plan to solve the water crisis, not just quick fixes. Premier Brumby is prepared to push ahead with expensive and unpopular options such as the desalination plant and the Goulburn pipeline, but allows the destruction of Melbourne’s water catchments for woodchips. One of the first and easiest things government can do is rapidly move logging out of catchments into plantations,” said Peter Campbell from Environment East Gippsland.

“Logging and woodchipping in catchments also increases their exposure to wildfire, by increasing access and replacing old, moist fire resistant forest with a rainforest understory with young, dry fire prone regrowth over large areas,” Mr Campbell concluded.

The Water White paper process: The Victorian government committed in its 2004 Water White Paper to investigate a phase out of logging and find alternative plantation resource for industry. After originally committing to investigating a rapid phase out, the state government has capitulated to the logging industry. Now the study by the Department of Sustainability and Environment and URS Consulting will investigate a range of possible scenarios: most (7) favour continued destruction of Melbourne’s catchments for woodchips. Only two options will investigate a 2030 phase out, long after Melbourne’s catchments have been decimated by logging.