Unlawful Stream Logging by VicForests Contractors in Toolangi

When laws ain't quite laws

My Environment Inc reported the stream destruction breach to DSE in June 2010, three months before the 2010 Victorian State Election. A coalition of environment groups, including ME Inc. and TWS took several shadow ministers from the Coalition and their advisers into the forests of Toolangi and Warburton to show them how VicForests were not complying with forestry laws. Amongst many breaches witnessed that day was a stream in the headwaters of the Goulburn that had been badly damaged when large trees were cut and dropped into the gully, knocking down many tree ferns. Logging debris had also been pushed into the stream.

These breaches were presented to the group that included Gary Blackwood, the Parliamentary Secretary for Forestry and Fisheries, who referred the issue on to the CEO of VicForests, David Pollard. Mr Pollard emphatically denied that there  were any problems with this coupe in respect of the Code of Forest Practices.

Mr Pollard's confident assurances turned out to be incorrect and DSE later found VicForests to be in breach of the Code of Forest Practices. The DSE stated that VicForests had felled trees into waterways in five instances and this constituted a breach of the Act. DSE stated that 10 demerit points were to be issued by VicForests to contractors, equal to seven days of work suspension for the contractor. VicForests denied any wrong doing and refused to penalise the contractor. (After all, the absence of a contractor would mean they could not meet wood supply arrangements - hardly an incentive to penalise?)

VicForests said that it was not responsible for the contractors they hire or the actions of the contractor and the contractor is not responsible for his actions either. And the streams damaged in all of this, well that's just part of the business of logging our water catchments for woodchips. A lesson for everyone involved. Why bother with laws?