Close the loopholes. Protect our forests. Protect our wildlife.

Victoria’s forests deserve better. Join us in calling on the Victorian Government to:

1.	Commit to genuine transparency over Forest Fire Management Victoria’s tree-felling and timber removal operations on public land.
2.	Extend mandatory on-the-ground threatened-species surveys to all significant tree-felling operations on public land.
3.	Strengthen the Conservation Regulator’s jurisdiction over Forest Fire Management operations and establish an independent mechanism for community concerns to be properly investigated.
4.	Recognise and support the rights and aspirations of Traditional Owners over Country, including through meaningful joint management of Victoria’s forests.
5.	Ensure that Victoria’s forests and the wildlife that depend on them are genuinely protected.

Email Your MPs

This tool finds your local MPs and sends them a ready-to-go email calling on the Government to close the logging loopholes – tweak it or send it as is.

The government said logging had ended. So why is it still happening?

Victoria officially ended native forest logging on 1 January 2024. But trees are still being felled and timber removed from native forests under programs described as “bushfire prevention,” “fuel management,” “hazardous tree removal,” or “storm recovery.”

These vague and overlapping labels have created a confusing system that makes it difficult for the public to know what is happening in our forests and who is accountable.

The government changed the label. It did not end the destruction.

Some of this timber can still be sold to mills, firewood suppliers and other buyers.

Bushfire safety matters, but it must not be used as a loophole to avoid environmental scrutiny or destroy critical habitat.

The scale is significant. More than 22,000 cubic metres of timber has been removed from Wombat State Forest since 2021 – enough to cover the MCG playing field with wood more than one metre deep, roughly six times the annual harvest VicForests previously described as sustainable for the forest. The Victorian National Parks Association think the real number is more like 50,000. Yet the public is not routinely told which trees are being removed, why, or what wildlife could be affected.

Wildlife are paying the price

Large, old and hollow-bearing trees provide vital habitat for threatened species including Greater Gliders and Leadbeater’s Possums.

More than 300 species depend on tree hollows, which can take hundreds of years to form.

Yet tree-felling can proceed without mandatory independent, on-ground threatened-species surveys.

A short-beaked echidna sheltering beneath a fallen log among leaf litter in a Victorian forest — A short-beaked echidna sheltering in the hollow of a fallen log.

Who is checking the government?

✗	The department marks its own homework. Under commercial logging, legally enforceable rules and independent regulatory oversight applied. Today, the department carrying out these works also assesses their own environmental impacts.
✗	The regulator says it's not their job. The Office of the Conservation Regulator has told community groups it does not regulate the department’s fire or fuel-management activities on public land.
✗	The public is left to fill the gap. Much of what the public knows has only emerged through Freedom of Information requests, investigative journalism, citizen science and community legal action.

Ending native forest logging should mean exactly that.

The Victorian Government must close the loopholes, make these operations transparent and ensure our forests and the wildlife who depend on them are genuinely protected.

Tell the Victorian Government to close the logging loopholes and protect our forests and wildlife.