Friends Of The Earth Melbourne Inc
Friends of the Earth worked over the course of the 20222023 towards our primary objectives with with the Victoran Government s announcement that it will bring the end of native forest logging in the east of the state forward by 6 years. All native forest logging will cease on public lands in the east from January 1, 2024. FoE campaigners are now working to ensure First Nations voices and the best available science determines what happens next for the 1.8 million hectares of public land now safe from logging. The decades long work in the Strzelecki Ranges in Gippsland, also continued to deepen, with a wide range of surveys to assist in our efforts to see the Strzelecki koala adequately protected. Sustainable Cities is driving FoE s environmental justice campaigning in the suburbs, with a strong focus on working with communities in the outer west and north west who lack access to public transport. FoE s continued to put energy into solidarity for frontline campaigns led by Traditional Owners who are protecting country from the nuclear fuel cycle. We helped secure a great win against the planned radioactive waste facility planned for near Kimba in South Australia. In October 2022, after a year s work, FoE published its Climate Impacts at Work report in collaboration with researchers at RMIT University. The report analyses the results of a survey distributed to the members of six Victorian unions, which was designed to unearth the knowledge and experiences of people affected by climate impacts in their workplaces, across a diversity of industries and geographic locations. The report s research is pioneering in that it looks at how a suite of climate impacts are playing out across multiple industries, and their widereaching effects on people s lives within and beyond their workplaces The October release of the Community Gas Retirement Roadmap saw a diversity of input collated, edited and completed with key recommendations for the State Government to adopt to help Victoria, the heaviest domestic gas using state in Australia, switch off gas and embrace renewables in an orderly, equitable and rapid manner. In the last 12 months, we have developed a focused campaign in the Victorian high country, which continues on, as despite the announcement to end logging, there are still many areas that are under imminent threat of logging in the lead up to Jan 1 2024. Unfortunately the court cases do not cover the areas of the North East FMA. We have identified a number of hugely important areas which are scheduled for logging in the high country and have brought attention to the threats they face. In January 2023 we also hosted a walk to the Little Dargo river. FoEM kept its citizen science field trips going, mapping the impacts of recent fires on snow gum woodlands in the high country. The data we have been building is being used to encourage the Victorian government to intervene to protect this vegetation community from climate change driven fires.