Protecting Victoria

The Wilderness Society Victoria staff and volunteers at the 2006 World Environment Day rally to protect Victoria's old-growth forests. Photo: Shannon Reddaway

The Melbourne Campaign Centre (MCC) works to protect wilderness across Victoria and assists in national campaigns at critical times such as the protection of Tasmania’s old-growth forests in the lead up to the last two Federal elections.

Our flagship campaign is the protection of Eastern Victoria's old-growth forests and water catchments along the Great Dividing Range, stretching from the Central Highlands to East Gippsland and the Alps, these forests are the heart and lungs of Victoria – they provide clean air and water.

These areas contain almost all our remaining old-growth forests and rainforests, Melbourne’s water supply catchments and homes to endangered wildlife including Victoria’s faunal emblem - the Leadbeater’s Possum - the Sooty Owl and the Spotted Tree Frog.

We have also begun an exciting new campaign to apply our Wildcountry vision to western Victoria, eastern South Australia and southern New South Wales. The cornerstone of this work is to link the wet eucalypt forests in the far south-west, through to the drier woodlands further north, the Little and Big Desert, Wyperfield and Murray Sunset Parks, the Mallee and the Murray-Darling basin.

This work will identify key ecosystem processes and areas in need of protection and restoration in the region, as well as confronting existing and emerging threats to their survival, such as logging, firewood extraction, salinity, sand mining and other inappropriate land management practices.

Over recent years we have broadened our campaign reach to include the south west and redgum forests in the state’s west and north, where once in a lifetime opportunities currently exist to protect them from logging and landclearing and add them into new National Parks.

Click here for a complete list of contacts in the Melbourne Campaign centre.