Tuesday, 14 May 2024

State forest access

Wayne FARNHAM (Narracan) (19:26): (659) My adjournment tonight is for the Minister for Environment, and the action I seek is: please do not shut down our state forests. Ninety-six per cent of Victoria’s state forests are already locked up. Only 4 per cent remains, and the locking up of the state forests in my area affects my whole electorate. It affects it from Nar Nar Goon right through to Walhalla. The only thing they have left now is tourism, and it is very important to these rural communities. I mentioned this last week in Parliament. If we shut down these state forests, business will suffer. I will read out a post on my Facebook page, if you will bear with me:

My name is Mark and my wife and I own the Toolshed Bar in noojee. We are a big employer in the area and if they lock our forests up, we are worried our bar will not be viable and we will have to shut our doors and put all our staff off …

All the business in the area are battling already with the logging industry and Vic forests gone and a massive part of our towns business is those who enjoy the forests for different purposes

I hope common sense prevails before serious damage is done

That is the point – these smaller communities now rely on tourism. They do not have the forests anymore. That has been taken away from them and tourism is extremely important, so I am asking the minister. The consultation process was absolutely disgraceful. There were no questions or answers. They got told to put a sticky note on a map and ‘Tell me what you do.’ People have not had an opportunity. The consultation process has been very poor, and as a result of this the community is worried they are going to lose their state forest and they are going to lose the tourism that they really do need for those economies to survive. So I ask the minister: do not lock up the state forests.