On November 7, 2019 — a year after an election that saw the Greens threatening to scoop some progressive seats off Labor — Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews made an announcement his government described as "the largest environmental protection policy in the state's history".
In a little over 10 years, the logging of native forests in the state would end.
And in the meantime, he instituted an "immediate protection" for important forests, a policy plank which his government would come to refer to often when defending its record on forest protection.
"Under the plan, 90,000 hectares of Victoria's remaining rare and precious old growth forest...will be protected immediately," the government's press release said.
And with that announcement, the Andrews government produced a map, marking all the areas in the state's forests that were thought to be old growth, labelling those zones "modelled old growth" and "not available" for logging.
But at the very moment, a crew hired by the Victorian government-owned logging agency VicForests was clearing an area on Mount Delusion in East Gippsland.
The area was this logging zone called “Duped”.
Within duped there were 28 hectares marked as modelled old growth on the protection map the government published.
This image was captured by a satellite on November 5, 2019, just days before the announcement. It shows that some of that modelled old growth had already been logged. But a lot still remained.
Then, over the coming weeks, that area the government said would be immediately protected, continued to be logged.
Until it was virtually all gone.
The "immediate protection" appeared to make no difference at Duped.
As logging was wrapping up in Duped, VicForests began felling trees in another area known as "On Sight".
Satellite imagery captured in late November 2019, shows large sections of modelled old growth still standing.
Then two weeks later, and almost a month after the announcement, large sections disappeared.
Over the course of the following three years, more examples of logging in the so-called protected old growth areas have been found.
Since the government's announcement, nine areas have had more than one hectare of modelled old growth logged.
And the logging continues to this day.
Environmentalists who had supported and applauded the government's move were blindsided — and now say they were tricked by the government. A letter on behalf of six of those groups wrote to Premier Daniel Andrews in late November 2019 seeking "urgent clarification" of the measures they had given public support for.
The claim that 90,000 hectares of old growth had been protected from logging did not match the reality and zones designated as old growth on the map the government released continued to be logged.
Scientists like Dr Kita Ashman from Charles Sturt University say protecting the area on that map is crucial to stop the extinction crisis in Australia.
"We're in a climate crisis, we're in a biodiversity crisis, and we still have forests that we know are important, that the government says are important, but they're still being logged," says Dr Ashman, who also does work for conservation groups.
A legal case currently before the Victorian Supreme Court claims that logging across much of East Gippsland has been unlawful for years anyway.
Under a law made in 1995, the Flora and Fauna Research Collective (FFRC) argue 60 per cent of old growth in wet and damp forest across the region must be protected.
But since that year, more than 40 per cent of the forest modelled as old growth in 1995 has been lost, meaning everything left should be protected by law, according to the plaintiffs.
The government argued the 1995 law does not require it to protect any old growth but says it is protecting what's left anyway — claims disputed by the environmentalists.
"If the case is successful it will mean the government must protect our old-growth forests and also comply with a series of other legal protections for rare forest types and critical habitats," says Danya Jacobs, a lawyer at Environment Justice Australia, who is running the case.
However, right now in East Gippsland, VicForests, with the blessing of the Andrews government, continues to log areas that ostensibly received "immediate protection" in November 2019.
Here's how.
The government map unveiled in 2019 modelled approximately 90,0000 hectares as "rare and precious old growth" and subject to protection — but that was only the start of the story. Within days, the Andrews government introduced a procedure that would allow the state's logging company VicForests to make the final determination as to whether a logging area really contained old-growth forest, and whether these zones should be protected.
"The claim that old growth logging has stopped in 2019 — it's infuriating because we're still seeing it," says Dr Ashman.
The government said the new method to verify old-growth forest was a "clear and consistent procedure to identify and determine the extent of old-growth forests."
But Dr Ashman describes the procedure as "absolute rubbish" and she says it was "designed in a way that definitely creates the opportunity for more logging."
The field test uses a range of factors to determine hectare by hectare if sections of forest modelled as old growth should really be counted "old growth" and therefore protected. Considerations include whether more than half the area has been impacted by fire, infrastructure or past logging — all of which disqualifies it as old growth.
Experts say even moderate fires, which don't permanently damage the values of old-growth forests, can prevent an area being counted as old growth — making it available for logging.
Even if a section of forest clears all those hurdles, there are still further tests that can open it up to logging: if 15 per cent of the trees in the area are considered to be "regrowth" or if fewer than 10 per cent of them are considered "senscent" (in their final growth stage), then it will be excluded from old growth protection.
A spokesperson for VicForests said Duped had an assessment similar to this one conducted on it prior to logging – and it found no old growth.
"I think the tool has been guided by … forestry principles, not ecological principles," says Dr Ashman. "And to me, that's a huge conflict of interest. If we've got forestry guiding what to log and what not to log, that's madness."
Leading forest ecologist Professor David Lindenmayer from the Australian National University agrees. He says he raised objections as part of a consultative expert group when it was first proposed.
"I felt that it was going to drive the decline of those important species and areas of high conservation value. And that's precisely what's been happening," he says.
Professor Lindenmayer says the definition of an old tree — a senescent tree — in the assessment is too high a bar. In some definitions, trees needed to only be 120 years old to help an area qualify as old growth. But trees that qualify as "senescent" are usually much older than that.
Dr Michael Feller, an emeritus associate professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada who has also done work for conservation groups, puts the matter simply: "Foresters throughout Australia try and find ways of not classifying forests as old growth because then they can go on logging them."
He says the tool is so subjective, it can let someone rule out almost any forest as old growth. "If you want to log a forest and if you think it's old, then you look for any little minute disturbance and say it's no longer old growth … The people who are using it want to find as little old growth as possible."
"I think the tool is almost useless," says Dr Feller.
But he doesn't blame VicForests for the failure — he says it's a failure of the government.
"Ultimately it's up to the government to write rules. It's the responsibility of the government to get the rules right."
The Office of the Conservation Regulator (OCR), who created the tool, says it was developed with a mixture of in-house expertise and feedback from external experts and stakeholders, adding it was "field tested by industry and environment groups".
Dr Feller says he was one of the people involved in that field testing. He says he gave that feedback to the OCR at the time, but the final version released was not an improvement.
And the government's engagement report revealed a scathing assessment from submissions. Only 7 per cent of respondents thought the procedure would improve the protection of old growth forests.
The OCR spokesperson told the ABC: "The tool uses the best available science to ensure consistency, transparency and accuracy in assessment. Information about the tools development process was published on Engage Victoria."
But now an ABC investigation can give an insight into how that tool has operated in the real world.
The ABC examined about 90 logging plans – called Forest Operation Coupe Plans – produced by VicForests, mostly for East Gippsland, an area famed for its old growth forests.
Among those logging plans were 21 that proposed logging in areas that were marked on that government map as "not available" for logging because they were thought to be old growth.
Between those 21 logging areas, there was a combined total of 143 hectares of modelled old growth.
But after VicForests applied the new field verification procedure, only 10 hectares of that 143 hectares was subsequently given "old growth" protection.
In at least eight of those locations, forest originally modelled as old growth has already been logged.
It's difficult to reconstruct what the forests looked like before they were logged. For many of them, logging records and fire history data suggests they were untouched forests.
But some areas modelled as old growth are still on the chopping block — facing potential logging.
The ABC visited some of those areas.
One is next door to Duped – a logging area called "Lofty". A strip of modelled old-growth forest once spilled across to Duped.
Walking through the trees, Dr Kita Ashman says the forest there is mature, and exhibits many qualities that make it crucial habitat.
"We're seeing large trees with hollows in them. We're seeing incredible fungi diversity, invertebrate diversity. We're seeing all kinds of signs of wombats, lyrebirds, gliders [and] other species that are threatened that are living in this forest."
But she says it won't meet the criteria for old growth using the field tool.
Perversely, Dr Ashman says that's partly because of just how old some of the forest there is.
Sitting on a huge fallen tree, she explains that when the giant old tree fell, it opened up the canopy, and encouraged young trees to grow.
With fewer old trees standing, and more young trees now growing, the government's procedure will be more likely to say the area is not old growth.
"This probably wouldn't meet that criteria. And that's not because this forest isn't important. It's because those rules and those standards have been set stupidly high," she says.
Dr Ashman's assessment is confirmed by documents obtained under freedom of information laws by conservation group Goongerah Environment Centre (GECO). VicForests didn't identify any old growth in the logging area, and now the area once marked as protected, could all be logged.
In theory, the field tool could find old growth outside of the areas on the government's map – but those freedom of information documents reveal that rarely happens.
The Andrews government insists it does not log old growth forests.
A spokesperson for the Victorian government told the ABC that besides the old-growth announcement in 2019, the government also established "a range of measures to protect all large, old trees greater than two-and-a-half metres in diameter."
"These protection measures are based on the latest science, technical advice and review by an independent scientific advisory panel, and enforced by the Conservation Regulator."
VicForests also insists it does not log old growth. "Consistent with Government policy, VicForests does not harvest old growth forests."
Chris Schuringa, a conservationist who obtained some of the freedom of information documents when she worked for GECO, says between the documents, the changes in the definition of "old growth" and the problems with the verification procedure, it is clear the government is not serious about protecting old-growth forests.
"The Andrews government have broken their promise to protect old-growth forests," she says.
Professor Lindenmayer agrees.
"Victoria does log old old-growth forest and it does that by deceit and default."
By changing the definition of what is old growth, by setting the bar very high, and using an inappropriate test for old growth, he says the state is chipping away at its remaining old growth.
A recent peer-reviewed paper by Professor Lindenmayer found old-growth forests make up just 1.16 per cent of the Ash forests in Victoria's Central Highlands.
Dr Feller says protecting the existing old growth isn't enough.
"If you just protect what is currently old growth and log the rest, then that old growth can get burnt by fires [and] the trees can die off and as a result — it will no longer be old growth. And then your old growth drops to almost nothing."
Feller and Lindenmayer say for that reason, mature forests need to be protected so they can one day become old-growth forests.
Professor Lindenmayer doesn't think much of the Victoria's "largest environmental protection policy in the state's history".
"If nothing changes, we're going to continue to see the steep decline in the condition of the forest; we're going to see continued major declines of biodiversity … we're going to see significant carbon emissions from forests; and we're going to see significant areas become much more flammable than they were previously," says Professor Lindenmayer.
Walking through a mature forest in East Gippsland, which was marked for protection by the government but lost it after VicForests applied its verification procedure, Dr Kita Ashman has mixed feelings.
"Being in this part of the forest fills me up," she says. "But walking into this part of the forest, going through areas that have been logged, it's almost indescribable. It's gut wrenching. It's honestly like you've lost a part of yourself."
Credits:
Reporting: Michael Slezak
Mapping: Mark Doman
Design: Alex Palmer
Development: Thomas Brettell
Photography: Brendan Esposito
Satellite images used in this piece courtesy of Planet Labs, Copernicus Sentinel 2 and Google/Maxar Technologies
