July 5th, 2025No new national parks…

Four years after the state government pledged to create 60,000 hectares of new national parks and conservation reserves, community and conservation groups are demanding it deliver on its original commitment.
On June 24, 2021, the government accepted expert recommendations to give forests and woodlands across Wombat, Wellsford, Mt Cole and Pyrenees forests increased protection as national parks and other conservation areas.
Wombat Forestcare’s Gayle Osborne said the community’s patience had worn thin. “We don’t want more hollow announcements or empty rhetoric. The government must immediately legislate the Wombat-Lerderderg National Park.
“These delays mean the Wombat Forest continues to be managed as a state forest rather than for the conservation of its biodiversity. The ongoing salvage logging significantly degrades habitats by disrupting natural processes and compacting soils.
“If the parks had been legislated as promised, Parks Victoria would be the forest manager and with its focus on ecological preservation, Parks Victoria would probably have adopted a different position on the log removal.”
Ms Osborne said after extreme weather events, the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action deployed a Rapid Response Team to assess and respond to environmental damage and recovery efforts.
“A draft internal working document authored by DEECA’s Rapid Response Team was obtained under Freedom of Information and points to the risks to flora and fauna from storm clean-up activities.
“The longer we wait for the legislation, the longer it will be before we have strategies in place for the preservation of species and new walking tracks and interpretive signs to welcome visitors to enjoy the forest. Expressing our disappointment that the state government has failed to legislate the promised park.”
Victorian National Parks Association nature conservation campaigner Ben Gill said the delays had eroded public trust. “These constantly broken promises betray communities, like mine, who’ve fought for decades to make sure our precious wildlife has a future. Instead of seeing legislation pass, we’ve seen bulldozers and chainsaws carve up the very habitat that should be safe in new expert-recommended national parks.”

A state government spokesperson said: “The government announced in 2021 that it would create three national parks, two conservation parks, and seven new and expanded regional parks in the state’s central west – this includes the Wombat-Lerderderg National Park covering more than 44,000 hectares between Daylesford and Bacchus Marsh. The new national parks will be created by linking existing state forests, parks and reserves. Legislation to create three new national park will be introduced into parliament as soon as practical.
“The great outdoors are to be experienced and admired, not locked away. Our focus is bringing more families to the bush and more jobs to the regions – while making sure keep our forests healthy for future generations to experience and enjoy.
“Forest Fire Management Victoria is responsible for managing bushfire risk on public land to protect communities and the local environment. No timber harvesting is taking place in the Wombat State Forest, no trees are being removed unless they present a hazard and no clear-felling is occurring in these operations.”