labor will create new national parks west of Melbourne, but has rejected creating any other parks and has expanded hunting!
On 11 October, the Victorian Labor Government finally introduced a bill to create the Wombat-Lerderderg, Mount Buangor and Pyrenees national parks.
This is a victory for all the people and groups who fought for decades to protect these iconic forests from mining and logging.
The Greens welcome the Government finally fulfilling this commitment, but are gutted to see that Labor has caved into hunters and shooters again. The bill would also allow recreational deer hunting in parts of these new parks and expand shooting in national parks in East Gippsland.
Disturbingly. Labor also said they "will not be creating any new national parks" in the future.
That’s a betrayal of Labor’s promise to protect all the areas that were previously set aside for logging in Victoria, as well as decades’ long campaigns for parks in places like the Central Highlands and Strzelecki Ranges.
We need to keep fighting to protect ALL of Victoria’s precious, diminishing forests – and the best way to do that is new national parks, with management by Traditional Owners.
The Greens will always fight for people and planet.
So while we support these overdue protections for the Central West region of Victoria, we’ll also keep doing everything we can to stop the spread of recreational deer hunting and keep up the fight for future national parks in Victoria!
Open letter to the Premier of Victoria
CC: Minister for Environment
Dear Premier Allan,
PROTECT NATURE AND CREATE NEW NATIONAL PARKS
We are concerned that over the past year and a half, the Victorian Labor Government has:
- Rejected plans for a Great Forest National Park, a decade-long plan to triple the amount of protected forests in the Central Highlands;
- Pledged to open 130,000 hectares of the Errinundra and Snowy River National Parks to recreational deer hunting;
- Stalled on an announcement in 2021 to legislate three separate parks in the Central West – the Wombat-Lerderderg, Mount Buangor and Pyrenees national parks – and deliver formal protections for the Cobaw Conservation Park, Wellsford Forest and other reserves; and
- Backflipped on a plan for the Government’s Great Outdoors Taskforce to investigate new national parks across the state, initially promised as part of Victoria’s $1.5 billion transition out of native forest logging.
Victoria has some of the most biodiverse, beautiful forests in the world. And national parks are the best way to permanently protect them from being destroyed – either by loggers, shooters or miners.
That’s why the vast majority of Victorians want more national parks. RedBridge polling in 2024 found that eighty per cent of Victorians support the creation of new parks.
Please listen to the voices of Victorians who want to protect nature and commit to new national parks.
Yours sincerely,
The Victorian Greens on behalf of concerned citizens…
Victorian Forest Alliance
Environment East Gippsland
Peter Jacobs, Chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s WCPA Mountains Specialist Group
Steve Meacher, concerned citizen