Protect nature in Victoria

The tall forests, woodlands, grassland plains, arid mallee scrub, majestic rivers, calm wetlands, spectacular coastline and thousands of native plants, animals and fungi that call Victoria home are incredible and unique.

Victoria is the most-cleared state in Australia. Let's work together to protect our surviving wildlife and habitats.

The tall forests, woodlands, grassland plains, arid mallee scrub, majestic rivers, calm wetlands, spectacular coastline and thousands of native plants, animals and fungi that call Victoria home are incredible and unique.

Victoria is the most-cleared state in Australia. Let's work together to protect our surviving wildlife and habitats.

Take action to defend our national park legacy

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Dear Premier Allan and Minister Dimopoulos

CC: Parliamentary Secretary for Outdoor Recreation, Luba Grigorovitch

I’m deeply concerned about your failure to prioritise and care for national parks and protected areas across Victoria.

Over the last 12 months I’ve watched in dismay as you’ve overseen:
• Cuts to funding and staff at Parks Victoria, Victorian Fisheries Authority and the Conservation Regulator.
• An abandoning of bold and celebrated commitments to create new national parks in the state’s east after the end of native forest logging.
• Repeated delays of promised legislation for new central west parks.
• Key nature policy reviews and recommendations, like the Wildlife Act and the Inquiry into Biodiversity Decline, being withheld.
• Senior Victorian Government representatives echoing anti-conservation sentiments and sharing false information in public speeches.
• Authorising illegal tracks at Chiltern-Mt Pilot National Park to be reopened despite the damage they’re causing to wildlife and habitats.
• Opening up Snowy River and Errinundra national parks to deer hunting, without consultation and at odds with the endorsed Greater Alpine National Parks Management Plan.

This is a disturbing shift away from a respected and effective legacy of nature protection. Stacked together, these actions are seriously bad news for nature across Victoria. They encourage invasive species, illegal clearing, illegal firewood collection and wildlife poaching to run rife.

Gutting funding for looking after parks makes it harder for our protected areas to cope. This short-term thinking is creating a vicious cycle that undermines their integrity and reputation. 
I want my elected representatives to stick up for nature, to do everything they can. To fulfil their duties and obligations to our natural world, and our future generations.

I call on you to:
• Increase funding so at least 1 per cent of the budget goes towards protecting nature.
• Prioritise a nature focused, well-resourced, robust parks manager.
• Legislate the long promised central west parks – Wombat-Lerderderg, Mount Buangor and Pyrenees national parks.
• Fill the missing gaps in our network of protected areas by creating new national parks, like the Great Forest National Park in the Central Highlands.

Our national parks are being smashed by a growing population, climate disruption, feral species and more. We need an evidence-led nature-focused vision for protecting them. They need the right resources to bring that vision to life.
 
As shown by recent RedBridge polling, national parks and protected areas are deeply loved and appreciated across political and economic spectrums. A massive 84 per cent of Victorian’s say national parks are important to them. Working families are especially connected to parks due to their low cost, safe and equitable access.

The protection of natural areas in national parks holds a deep place of reverence amongst Labor Party values. Steve Bracks’ bold leadership created the Great Otway National Park, Box-ironbark parks and world first network of marine national parks and sanctuaries. The enduring legacy of the late Joan Kirner and Premier John Cain, who protected the snow-capped peaks of the largest national park in Victoria, the Alpine National Park. The Brumby Government legislated the Red Gum national parks and created the first Aboriginal co-managed parks.

Yet the Andrews/Allan government has legislated no large new national parks in almost three terms of government. This is one of the worst records for parks creation in 50 years.

I want future generations to be able to stare in wonder up at a towering Mountain Ash trees and watch in amazement as Helmeted Honeyeaters (Victoria’s state emblem) dance through their forest home as they have done for millennia.

I call on you to stick up for nature, our national parks, protected areas and the people that look after them.

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