VicForests: The unwelcome guest that just won’t leave

Last week the ABC revealed that ex-VicForests CEO Monique Dawson and logging industry heavy-hitters associated with the controversial Pentarch Group and Allied Natural Wood Enterprises (ANWE) have established a new foundation attempting to influence forest management policy in Victoria.

This follows the news that the Victorian government has appointed 80 former VicForests staff into key decision-making roles in the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) and offered VicForests’ harvest and haulage contractors 5-year deals with Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMV).

VicForests systematically breached the public trust and failed Victorians on every measure—economically, socially and environmentally—as detailed in a letter co-signed by sixty environment and community groups late last year.

Victoria’s forests have suffered generations of mismanagement at the hands of this industry. It's time to take the profit motive out of forest management and put nature and what makes for healthy Country at the centre - and that means bringing in people with genuine ecological understanding, not those responsible for their degradation.

Those responsible for shovelling millions in taxpayer funds into overlogging the forests—and forcing forest wildlife like the wollert / Leadbeater’s Possum and warnda / Greater Glider to the brink of extinction—have lost all credibility and pose a huge risk to this new era of forest recovery, restoration and protection.

Minister Dimopoulos and Premier Allan need to immediately allay community fears that this controversial new foundation will ever receive or handle any public funds.

Matthew Landolfo, Victorian Campaigns Manager for the Wilderness Society, said:
“It’s unthinkable that the same people responsible for haemorrhaging millions in taxpayer funds, breaching environmental protections, threatening precious wildlife with extinction, and undertaking covert surveillance of scientists and environmentalists would be put in charge of getting Victorians out of the mess that they created.”

“If the Minister Dimopoulos and the Labor government want to finally put the controversies of VicForests behind us, then they need to recognise these blatant attempts at logging industry greenwashing and make sure those responsible for such gross mismanagement ”

“The reputational, ecological and socio-economic damage caused by VicForests needs to be mopped up and rectified, yet this so-called “Healthy Forests Foundation” is just VicForests by another name.”

“Those responsible for perpetuating significant forest mismanagement across the state pose a grave risk to the recovery, restoration and protection of Victoria’s globally significant native forests.”

”Right now—in the wake of the end of industrial native forest logging in the state—there is a huge opportunity to rebuild public trust, generate tourism and employment in the regions, and work directly in partnership with Traditional Owners who've cared for Country for millennia. Premier Allan and Minister Dimopolous should be focussed on the future, not going back to the worst of VicForests’ failures."

“To truly protect Victoria’s iconic native forests for the benefit of the whole community, the government needs to restore public trust in land management policy, by ensuring the cultural, financial and legal issues that plagued VicForests do not simply find a new home with DECCA, FFMV or more logging industry ‘greenwashing’.”

For interviews with Matthew Landolfo, Victorian Campaigns Manager, please contact Rhiannon Cunningham, media adviser for the Wilderness Society on [email protected] or 0419 992 760