By John Fraser
In the forests of Goolengook in East Gippsland, there are places where the understorey is so thick that it can take half a day to walk a kilometre; whole valleys of tree ferns, where the smallest is over 10 metres tall; trees so big that a group of five people with their arms stretched out could not form a complete circle around the trunk.
The idea that anyone could even consider logging a place like this makes me feel a little crazy.
Goolengook Block is an area of forest slightly over 9000 hectares. A small north-east portion of it is contained in the Errinundra National Park but the remainder is almost entirely state forest. Although there has been extensive logging in the south-west half of the block, most of the north-east area is undisturbed. That area is now under threat.
The unlogged area contains warm and cool temperate types of rainforest, as well as some extremely rare overlap rainforest, created when warm and cool temperate rainforests meet and mix.
The significant and endangered animal species in the Goolengook region include the long-footed potoroo, sooty and powerful owls, yellow-bellied glider, tiger quoll, greater glider, large billed scrub wren, pink robin, Australian king parrot, and yellow tailed black cockatoo. Significant plant species include the slender tree fern, yellow elderberry, Errinundra shining gum, and austral ground fern.
A report commissioned by the Victorian government in 1991, The Ecological Survey Report Number 35: Flora And Fauna of the Goolengook Forest Block, and authored by scientists with the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, recommended the creation of seven "sites of significance" to be protected from logging.
This advice was followed until 1995 when the government unveiled the East Gippsland Forest Management Plan. This plan, criticised by both green groups and practising scientists, replaced all sites of significance with new reserves called "special protection zones" and "special management zones". These new zones are considerably smaller than the sites of significance which had been the minimum size required for ecological sustainability.
The new zones can be moved at any time at the discretion of the department. Because they are non-statutory reserves, there is no legal requirement to protect them. While logging is not allowed in special protection zones, logging roads can be built through them — and they were in Goolengook.
The current forest blockade at Goolengook is located in a logging coupe that was once part of a site of significance. Piles of dead trees have been bulldozed right to the edge of the rainforest that remains and logging tracks have been cleared straight through tree fern gullies. With the logging roads have also come blackberries and other invasive weeds.
In early 1996, conservationists from Friends Of the Earth, the Wilderness Society and Concerned Residents of East Gippsland visited Goolengook. They subsequently recommended that the area be a priority for the East Gippsland campaign. In December, seven blockaders set up camp. That blockade has now grown to more than 50 people, and close to 300 have been through the area.
The contentious site has become an "icon" conservation area and activists fear that police may soon attempt to bust the blockade. The participants are well prepared to hold the area, however, and will not give up easily. For more details, or to get involved, contact Friends of the Earth on (03) 9419 8700.