Community groups, Friends of Gippsland Bush and Friends of the Earth today expressed concern that negotiations over the buy-back of key rainforest and wet forests of the Strzelecki Ranges continue to stall. The Reserve was announced by Environment Minister John Thwaites in October 2006 (the new Environment Minister is Gavin Jennings) and is still official Labor Party Policy.
Groups are upset that Hancock Victorian Plantations continue to log contentious rainforest areas in the cores and links, without community input, which is in breach of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in October 2006. The groups have documented many breaches to the HoA committed by Hancock over the past 17 months.
"The way the community has been treated by the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) and Hancock has been absolutely disgraceful" said Friends of the Earth spokesman Anthony Amis. "Almost every effort to negotiate an outstanding win for the biodiversity of the region, has been thwarted and undermined by the DSE who are opposing any moves that Trust for Nature manage the area as Reserve. DSE want to take control in order to log the reserve themselves" Mr Amis said. "We've had to put up with 17 months of...
[More]
Tags:
hancocks, logging, rainforest, wood chips
Posted at: 04:15 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink
