Woodlands must be preserved

Recently the State Government through its Coastcare Victoria Community Grants Program, awarded $1 million to local organisations (Sentinel -Times, 28.08.2022, p8).

Each received up to $10,000 to fund projects that improve management and adaptation to coastal hazard risk in line with Victoria’s Resilient Coast – Adapting for 2100+. 

For these grants, we thank our State Member for Bass, Jordan Crugnale, and State Minister for the Environment, Lily D’Ambrosio, whom you pictured against the backdrop of one of Bass Coast’s scenic beaches. 

A reminder of why people live and visit our area, the photo encapsulates something of how precious our natural environment is.

However, it is not just our foreshore and sea that is important to us.

We ask Jordan Crugnale and Minister D’Ambrosio to listen to the thousands of locals and others calling on them and the State Government, of which they are part, to save the precious and irreplaceable Western Port Woodlands. 

Stretching from Nyora-Lang Lang to Grantville and beyond, the woodlands are virtually the last 5 per cent of uncleared pre-European native vegetation in West Gippsland. 

Much of it is currently being dug up for sand or is set to go for sandmining over the next few decades.

The issue is so important to locals, it is looming as a key issue in the November State election.

Meryl and Hartley Tobin, Grantville