Bass Coast Shire demands urgent action to Save Western Port Woodlands

WITH at least one councillor recalling the day when activists stood naked to protest over the protection of the Western Port Woodlands Bass Coast Shire Council has moved to secure emergency environmental protections for the depleted landscape.

Council last week voted to formally request the Victorian Minister for Planning to step in and apply interim planning controls to safeguard the region’s remaining native forests before they are lost to clearing and sand mining development.

The proposed interim controls will serve as a legal shield according to council. They aim to prevent immediate environmental degradation while the council conducts comprehensive studies to establish permanent zoning frameworks.

According to council only the Minister for Planning possesses the legal power to implement interim controls capable of immediately freezing destructive activities to protect vulnerable ecosystems. To address the critical timeline council has explicitly requested the Minister exercise her emergency powers under Section 20(4) of the Planning and Environment Act 1987.

Local officials have argued that the standard timeline is a luxury that this fragile landscape simply could not afford. The proposed interim Environmental Significance Overlay (ESO5) control has been engineered with a strict expiry date of May 31, 2028.

This multi-year window provides the necessary buffer period for the municipality to complete detailed ecological mapping and community consultations. Council’s initiative is backed by a sense of profound environmental urgency among local representatives who have claimed the Western Port Woodlands represent one of the few remaining continuous stands of native vegetation in a region heavily impacted by historical agriculture and expanding resource extraction.

The area serves as a critical biodiversity corridor activists have claimed and is home to endangered species like the Southern Brown Bandicoot, the Powerful Owl, and rare native orchids.

The region sits on valuable construction sand reserves, making it a target for heavy industry supplying Melbourne’s building boom. Conservationists argue that expanding these quarries threatens to fragment the remaining bushland beyond repair, destroying the canopy and disrupting vital wildlife pathways.

Community advocacy groups have fiercely applauded the council's aggressive stance.

For years, local residents and environmental networks campaigned under the banner of ‘Save Western Port Woodlands’ documenting illegal clearing and raising alarms over disappearing habitats.

Activists stressed that ministerial intervention was the only way to close legal loopholes that allow developers to exploit standard planning delays.

The Minister for Planning must now weigh the immediate ecological crisis against the commercial interests of the state's construction sector. If the Minister approves the Section 20(4) request, it will mark a historic victory for local government climate action and biodiversity preservation for the region.

Conversely, a rejection could signal a green light for accelerated clearing, leaving the future of the Western Port Woodlands hanging in the balance.

Highlighting the gravity of the situation Cr Rochelle Halstead championed the Western Port Woodlands movement characterising the protection of the forest remnants as a battle of state-wide significance.

"We need immediate protections for the remnants of the Western Port Woodlands, which we as a council have identified as one of our five chief advocacy priorities," Cr Halstead said.

Pointing to historical data Cr Halstead reminded the community of the broader crisis facing regional biodiversity. "Victoria is the most cleared state in Australia, with more than 14 million hectares of forest being cleared since European settlement. This habitat destruction is still actively occurring today,” Cr Halstead warned.

Adding his thanks to the Save Western Port Woodlands group Cr Mat Morgan reflected that the younger, long-haired tree hugging activist version of him was probably disappointed that he didn’t have a harness and helmet on. “I have a suit and a microphone so I'm asking as nicely as humanly possible to the Minister for Planning to work with us and save our woodlands please,” Cr Morgan said.

Cr. Temby offered his sincere thanks and gratitude to the community members and specifically the Save Westernport Woodland Group who had been very vocal for a number of years. ” We've had them out on the Grantville traffic lights holding up signs during the holiday seasons and I'm sure they will be very pleased to see that we've got to this point. There's still work to do, but I think we're heading in the right direction.”