"Come on, Labor, finish the job" says Woodlands group

The Save Western Port Woodlands (SWPW) group says despite years of promises by the Labor Government, the nationally significant Western Port Woodlands remain vulnerable to sand quarrying.

In a media statement, the group said for seven years, the community has done what government asked of it to protect the Western Port Woodlands.

"Now we call on the Labor Government to finish the job it started when then Premier Daniel Andrews announced before the 2018 election that Bass Coast would be declared a Distinctive Area and Landscape (DAL).

"Mr Andrews promised the resulting Statement of Planning Policy for Bass Coast would protect 'the environment, landscape and local lifestyle'.

"Government ministers and MPs told us that if we wanted to protect the last significant forest in our region, we needed to look to the DAL process," the statement continued.

"We believed the promise and we trusted the process. More than 500 people made submissions about the woodlands to the DAL hearing in 2023, making it the single biggest issue raised.

"Three years on, it is time for Labor to finish the job before the 2026 election and protect the last functional forest in our region."

Protection is within reach

SWPW said an interim Environmental Significance Overlay (ESO) would protect the woodlands while permanent protection is developed.

"The community has done its part and the council is doing its part. The government needs to finish the job before the election," said Catherine Watson, of Save Western Port Woodlands.

Ms Watson said during the DAL hearings, a panel of ecologists, including the Minister's own expert witness, concluded that the Western Port Woodlands are of national significance and provide irreplaceable habitat for many common and threatened species.

The ecologists recommended an ESO across the entire woodland corridor - public and private land.

The final Bass Coast Statement of Planning Policy recognised the woodlands as an area of "outstanding environmental significance" and acknowledged long-standing community concerns about the impacts of sand quarrying on biodiversity.

It called for further work to map the woodlands, assess their values and evaluate existing protections.

Bass Coast Shire Council has committed $500,000 and is undertaking that work in preparation for an ESO.

The aim is not simply to preserve what remains but to rebuild habitat links between the major reserves, allowing threatened species to move through the landscape.

SWPW said coastal woodlands are rare and diminishing but there is no shortage of sand.

New Strategic Extractive Resource Areas near Lang Lang and Trafalgar have directed future sand quarrying towards cleared farmland, closer to the Melbourne market.

"Yet recent Resources Victoria mapping retains an Extractive Industry Interest Area (EIIA) overlay over virtually all the woodland on private land between the Hurdy Gurdy Creek and Grantville Nature Conservation Reserves," the group says.

"Despite years of promises by the Labor Government, the nationally significant Western Port Woodlands are as vulnerable as ever to sand quarrying.

"We were told the DAL process would resolve this land-use conflict between protection of areas of high biodiversity and sand quarrying.

"We have been let down.

"We call on the Labor Government to honour the intent of its own Statement of Planning Policy for Bass Coast and remove the EIIA from the Western Port Woodlands."