Introduction

This report outlines the discovery of an extraordinary and deplorable abuse of bureaucratic power to serve the interests of the Victorian logging industry, a pulp mill and the jobs of the state bureaucrats whose existence is predicated on the continued logging and woodchipping of the state’s native forests.

The cost has been the ongoing destruction of one of the world’s most unique temperate forest ecosystems and the exposure of another example of how the Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) process failed to end the most heavily fought and divisive environmental debate in the state’s history – the conflict over the future of Victoria’s native forests.

This story outlines how members of the Victorian government bureaucracy removed crucial chapters of a state government commissioned report which recommended the protection of the Baw Baw plateau and escarpments.  The removal of these chapters ensured that one of the world’s most significant ecosystems remained available for clear fell logging, a practice that continues to this day.

The Central Highlands Alliance (TCHA) is calling for the immediate heritage listing through the Commonwealth’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity and Conservation Act (EPBC) of the Baw Baw plateau and escarpments to protect it from further logging. This listing will be  based on the case put almost a decade ago in the now discovered chapters of the ‘Ecological Survey Report No.46 - Flora and Fauna of the Eastern and Western Tyers Forest Blocks and Adjacent South-Eastern Slopes of Baw Baw National Park, Central Gippsland, Victoria’  that details the high conservation values of the region and whose expert authors supported the protection of this extraordinary part of Victoria’s natural heritage.

Background

Of the 5 RFA’s signed in Victoria, the Central Highlands Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) received little campaigning from the environment movement.  This may have been because they were in the wake of a devastating RFA decision federally with devastating outcomes for the Tasmanian and East Gippsland RFAs despite some small gains.  Environment Victoria was the “peak” group for the region at the time.

There is little doubt that, as with Tasmania and East Gippsland, where some small gains were made, engagement in the Central Highlands RFA would have also achieved some small wins. It is generally thought that had environment groups engaged at the time, this small win would have been the Baw Baw Plateau and its escarpments and the States water supply (such as the Yarra tributaries).

Any legitimate conservation assessment would see the Baw Baw plateau and its environs protected. Along  with the Errinundra Plateau farther east, the Baw Baw is one of the two great plateaus of South Eastern Australia, and is a recognised  international site of significance for its animal life and National significance for its stands of old growth forests, rock formations and intricate water tributaries.

State government departments and bureaucracies with an interest in maintaining the maximum possible public land estate available for logging would have been desperate to ensure that the values of the Baw Baw region were understated or ignored. Nearly a decade later the length that individuals in these agencies went to has now been exposed.  To further their cause they  removed key chapters in the  ‘Ecological Survey Report No.46 - Flora and Fauna of the Eastern and Western Tyers Forest Blocks and Adjacent South-Eastern Slopes of Baw Baw National Park, Central Gippsland, Victoria’ 

The RFA process was supposed to, once and for all, resolve the land use debate over areas of public land native forest, by taking due consideration of conservation values and wood supply needs of the logging industry.  The joint Commonwealth/State RFA process relied overwhelmingly on state bureaucracies for detailed data and other information on forest conservation values of the areas they were investigating.

The delivery of the conservation case for the forests of the Central Highlands RFA region and the Baw Baw plateau and escarpments in particular, relied heavily on a state report authored by seven departmental scientists. However when it  came time to present, the scientists involved were ordered not to take papers into the federal meeting, but rather rely on their basic knowledge and present verbally. This is the only information they were permitted to deliver into the RFA process.

The ‘censored’ report contained several chapters outlining the high conservation values of the Baw Baw plateau and escarpments and recommends that they are protected from logging. These chapters of the report were ordered to be ‘burned’ by senior foresters and were unreachable (even by previous attempts at FOI until May this year).

In 1999 Alan McMahon in a parliamentary inquiry into the RFA made the following statement:

“... the RFA is failing to protect national estate values. In the draft project report, National Estate Values in the Central Highlands, the Australian Heritage Commission and CNR recommended a 30,040 hectare proposed national estate place in the Baw Baws. That is compared with the present 13,000 hectares national park. This included most of the south face. It also found the Baw Baws to have a greater range of national estate values than anywhere else in the Central Highlands”

“While the Central Highlands RFA process was under way, the Victorian government passed the Wood Pulp Agreement Bill without reference to the outcome of the process. They ignored it blatantly, and I think they compromised it, placing the validity of the process itself in question.”

In his submission to the Commonwealth Senate Inquiry into the RFA’s, Senator Bob Brown pointed to the omission of the missing chapters:

“that the environmental studies which should have allowed for a proper assessment of forests before they were signed over to logging have not been done as far as the south face of Baw Baw is concerned”.

The Inquiry Chair stated this to be a fairly serious charge and made a commitment to find the report…this never eventuated until now (2006).

The existence of the report’s missing chapters were brought to the attention of TCHA President over several years of discussion with various people.  After requesting the report from the DSE, TCHA was told they could not have it.  A separate request was then made by another party, only to receive the document ‘doctored’ and bereft of the missing chapters.  On legal advice, the other party questioned where the chapters were and the relevant chapters were finally delivered in May 2006.

The missing chapters detail the intrinsic conservation values of the Baw Baws environs.

Senior bureaucrats, many of whom are still in the current Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) should come under intense scrutiny for the role they played or knowledge they have about the removal of critical aspects of the report and the devastating effect that has had on Baw Baw.

Current forest based, ecological science suggests that the present Victorian government forest policy will lead to the extinction of many forest dependent species. Primary indicator species include; Spot Tailed Quoll, Sooty Owl, Baw Baw Frog and Leadbeaters possum are under immediate threat.

An urgent review of highly significant areas such as Baw Baw and East Gippsland is required.