Planned burning
Increases flammability
The most common form of so-called “fuel reduction” in Victorian forests is planned burning.
Location: Sardine Creek, Bunyip State Park, East Gippsland
It is highly questionable because after a few years, flammability often increases to greater levels than before the burn. Planned burns can increase the fire danger within a few years because of the pulse of regrowth that follows. As the understorey grows back after a fire, becoming taller and denser, fire risk greatly increased for the next 37 to 49 years.
Source: Adjunct Associate Professor Philip Zylstra Submission NSW Independent Bushfire Inquiry
It has been found that over time, some forests “thin” themselves and become less likely to burn, however, hazard-reduction burning disrupts this process.
Source: Old forests three times less flammable
Harms human health
Planned burns harm human health with widespread smoke across rural and urban areas. Smoke carries PM2.5s (particles tiny enough to penetrate deep into the lungs), the most toxic air pollution most of us will ever encounter, triggers asthma attacks and is carcinogenic.
Source: Health Burden of Bushfire Smoke in Australia
Harms wildlife
They also destroy habitat, wound and kill wildlife, and threaten biodiversity. Hollows can take 100+ years to form. Studies have revealed that 25-50% of hollow bearing trees collapse after prescribed burning. This is significant habitat loss for the 300 species of native birds and mammals that need hollows for breeding.
Source: Reducing the effect of planned burns on hollow-bearing trees
A 2025 post-burn survey by the Gippsland Environment Group in the Lake Tyers State Park found that in an area of 20 hectares, more than one hundred very large old hollow bearing trees were destroyed by FFMV operations.
Source: Gippsland Environment Group survey 24-03-2025
You can watch a short video of the harm planned burns do to hollow bearing trees here.
August event ‘Protecting Victoria’s Forests’
Come along on to the Hawthorn Arts Centre on Tuesday 11 August at 7pm to hear A/Prof Phil Zylstra and Senior Environmental Lawyer Natalie Hogan talk more about planned burning and loophole logging. Bring along your own questions to ask. RSVP here.
Loophole logging
While so-called commercial native forest logging in Victoria’s Central Highlands and East state forests officially ended on 1 January 2024, more than two years later, logging continues in forests around our state under a number of different guises.
Forest By-Products Framework
In April 2026, DEECA and FFMV started rolling out a new framework about how “debris” removed from forests will be managed. This “debris” is timber, and the framework itself notes that this has “economic value”. Therefore it can be distributed to timber mills, among other places. Does taking timber out of a forest and selling it – for revenue – to a timber mill sound like logging?
Strategic Fuel Breaks
Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMV) carries out “strategic fuel break” works, when, where and however they like, with no scientific basis, no assessment of threatened and endangered species in the area, no monitoring of whether what they’re doing is actually making anything safer for anyone, and no oversight. This is stealth logging.
Crucially, logging by FFMV is not subject to the Code of Practice for Timber Production. This means it’s not subject to the legal requirements that are intended to protect threatened species, and the State Conservation Regulator has no powers to intervene.
Read about the EJA’s legal concerns about the continuation of logging under other guises here.
Salvage Logging / Storm Recovery work
So-called “post-storm debris removal” involves logging after a storm has passed through a forest. It’s believed to be doubly damaging to the forest because just when a forest is recovering from a storm, it is targeted by this stealth logging. The flawed justification used for this type of logging is that the fallen trees are fuel for wildfires, but in fact, fallen trees do not promote fast-moving fires. In truth, salvaged logged forests are more flammable for a period of seven to 40 years after the forests have been cut and started to regenerate.
Clearly, there are many loopholes and we need to ask our MPs and candidates for the forthcoming election to legislate a permanent ban on native forest logging
Stand up for our native forests
As we head toward the state election in November 2026, standing up now is the only way to defend the forests and the wildlife that depends on them.
Victorian Forest Alliance
Read more and take action at the Victorian Forest Alliance Loophole Logging page.
Lighter Footprints Forest Working Group