By Jed Lanyon
Environmentalist group Forest Conservation Victoria established a blockade to prevent logging operations in Toolangi on Monday 2 September.
One member was suspended 20 metres high to a tree on a platform attached to logging machinery.
The group took to social media to declare the protest along the Murrindindi River in Toolangi, where a threatened sooty owl nesting site has been reported.
“Continued destruction of some of the world’s largest carbon stores, the mountain ash forests of Victoria, has left these ecosystems on the brink of collapse,” the post said.
“Our government is dragging its feet on turning its words into action and we’re losing time we just can’t afford.
“We will continue to stand up against these practices until we see an end to native forest logging.”
Friends of Leadbeater’s Possum president Steve Meacher said that the coup in question was closing in on a Zone 1A habitat meaning that the area was being used as animal habitat or would be in the near future.
He said the number of greater gliders and sooty owl nests sightings nearby should be plenty reason to halt logging operations in the area.
“Any one of those should spark protection, having all three is extraordinary,” he said.
“This is an area that should not be subject to logging…and now a blockade has been set up to halt that logging so that information sent to DELWP (Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning) can actually be processed and acted upon.
“We would like to see the logging machinery withdrawn and for the access to the area for logging to be reviewed.”
