Mountain Journal

As you will know, winning a significant campaign can take years of work. I am really pleased to be able to tell you about some great developments on snow gums that we have recently helped achieve.

You may recall that Friends of the Earth (FoE) started working in the Victorian high country in 2021 because there was very limited forest campaign work going on in the north east at the time, and many dire threats of logging in special forests. We released the Icon at Risk report, which made it clear snow gum forests are facing an existential threat from climate change driven fire and expanded impact of dieback. We campaigned for an end to logging in the high country, and developed a rescue plan for snow gum forests.

During the campaign, we have had to deal with three different environment ministers on these issues. Each time we needed to get the new minister and their staff up to speed on the issue, then encourage them to act.

In February this year we hosted the first ever snow gum summit, which allowed us to build the profile of the campaign and give the government more detail about how they need to respond to protect snow gum forests.

And now, after four years of consistent work, we have some great news.

Back in July, we were told by the environment ministers’ advisers that he supports our call for an investigation into the health of snow gum forests. We have been arguing that such an investigation would allow the government to develop a plan for heading off the twin risks of longer and more intense fire seasons and increased loss of trees due to die back.

The Greens have now been able to get extra details on how the government is responding to our campaign (thanks to Ellen Sandell and her staff). She recently asked the government in parliament whether the Government had any plans to investigate reports of localised ecological collapse of Snow Gum populations.

The minister responded with the following details:

• The Department of Environment, Energy and Climate Action (DEECA) is working with researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) to support increased understanding of Snow Gum communities. (This is the first stage of doing a comprehensive investigation).
• Parks Victoria is investigating options for remote sensing of dieback, including in Snow Gum communities. This will enable rapid detection of dieback and adjustment of management actions accordingly.
• DEECA provides in-kind contributions and funding for research led by ANU to assess Snow Gum dieback, condition, and determine dieback mitigations. An ongoing aim of the ANU research is to assess the spatial extent of dieback and Snow Gum condition in Victoria. Parks Victoria is seeking to collaborate with a research organisation to deliver an analysis of Snow Gum refugia, as well as mapping of discrete patches of long-unburnt Snow Gum woodlands. (our campaign influenced the development of research by John Morgan, Michael Shackleton and Zac Walker from the Research Centre for Applied Alpine Ecology at La Trobe University which mapped the extent of fire damage among snow gums).
• DEECA is taking specific actions to protect Snow Gums from fire, including rapid suppression using aerial and ground resources, and DEECA’s rappel firefighters responding to bushfires in the remote, mountainous and inaccessible terrain in the Alpine National Park. (It should be noted that traditionally this doesn’t happen – wild areas like the mountains that host snow gum forests are often left to burn. We have been lobbying fire agencies to increase efforts to protect these forests and feel like things are improving, eg as happened this summer with the Mt Margaret fire).
• DEECA also has regional bushfire management strategies in place which identify areas of fire sensitive vegetation communities including Snow Gum communities which guide management actions and mitigations, such as the exclusion of direct ignition or mechanical disturbance during fuel management operations or suppression where possible.

We have worked hard to ensure that protection of snow gum forests is firmly on the state government’s radar and we are really pleased by the minister’s response.

We continue to pursue the implementation of the full investigation of the state of snow gums, but feel that the hard part – getting the government’s attention and building political will to act – is now done.

PS: if you haven’t signed our letter to the Minister, please do: it helps send the message that people care about this issue.