Welcome to our October newsletter.
Spring is in full swing, the forests are bursting back to life and there’s plenty happening across Victoria’s forests. October is packed with events, campaigns, new parks, research and opportunities to get involved. Read on, get informed and join the action
In this edition:
5 Oct | Stand up for Treaty
10 Oct | Koala Alliance wildlife training
Victorians for Nature launch
Enough is Enough: Stop bulldozing Gariwerd
15 Nov | Country, Community and Care
New parks and reserves
Hollows Case judgment coming soon
SOSF Greater Glider survey
Meet the Glossies: new South-eastern Glossy Black-Cockatoo zine
New paper by Ian Penna challenges bushfire myth
7 Nov | Mountains to Rivers Festival
Recommended reading
Get election ready with Build a Ballot
VFA turns 5 this month — and we need your help to find a celebration venue for an end-of-year bushdance!
Stand up for Treaty
Victoria’s Treaty with First Peoples is now law, but its future depends on ongoing community support. With the state election approaching, there are opportunities to learn more, get involved and stand alongside First Peoples in defending Treaty and self-determination.
Treaty Yarn with Troy Austin and Indi Clarke
Gellung Warl / First Peoples’ Assembly
Monday 5 October, 7pm
Balam Balam Place, 15 Phoenix Street, Brunswick
Free Event Please Book tickets
Music, Storytelling & Solidarity for Treaty
ANTaR Victoria
Wednesday 21 October 2026, 6:30pm
Bergy Bandroom, 64–68 Sydney Road, Brunswick
Book tickets
You can also sign up as an Ally with Gellung Warl or join the Together for Treaty movement to stay informed and find ways to support Treaty.
Koala Alliance wildlife emergency training
Photo Credit J.Bailey
Koala Alliance is holding a free specialist training day for Koala Alliance Army members, covering wildlife emergency response, search and rescue, assessment and triage, and working in rescue teams.
Thursday 10 October, 9am–5pm
Buninyong Community House, Buninyong
Only Army Members can undertake the training and be active in the field under Koala Alliance insurance.
Anyone can join the Koala Alliance Army HERE. Once you join (cost $30 annually), you’ll receive an invitation to the training. Army Membership is voting membership and members can be trained as rescuers and get active in the field.
Bookings close 5pm, 7 October.
Victorians for Nature campaign launch
Photo Credit Trudy Kelder
What a night! Northside Wines was packed, buzzing with energy and full of people ready to take action for Victoria’s forests, wildlife and natural places.
There were great conversations, plenty of campaign materials, new connections and lots of people signing up to be part of the fight for nature. It was fantastic to see such a strong crowd come together and kick off the campaign.
The campaign is underway, so sign up for alerts and get involved. Our first Ratbag Meeting is Wednesday 7 October at 6.30pm, 60 Leicester Street, Carlton VIC 3053.
Enough is Enough: Stop bulldozing Gariwerd
The beautiful, mature stringybark woodland and heathland within Grampians National Park near Dunkeld has been attacked by bulldozer in preparation for being burnt by Forest Fire Management Victoria. This is one of the last unburnt parts of the park. Large Messmate and Brown Stringybark have been bulldozed (up to 20+ metres from the track), as has the understorey of heaths and orchids in a great swathe along tracks east of Cooks Road and south and west of the old Dunkeld reservoir and pumping station.
Read the full summary doc by ‘Enough is Enough’ HERE including the community’s call to action and details of who to contact. If you love Gariwerd help the community fight this destruction.
Country, Community and Care: Landscape Recovery after the Longwood Fire
The impacts of bushfires can be easy to forget when we’re living far from the affected landscapes. This fundraising dinner is an opportunity to reconnect with what happened in the Strathbogie Ranges, hear from people involved in the recovery and support the local community caring for Country.
Enjoy a Syrian banquet, live music and conversation, with local experts Bertram Lobert and Helen McKernan sharing what was lost and what is now recovering. There’ll also be a raffle featuring art prizes.
Sunday 15 November, 6.30–9.30pm
Shamiat Restaurant, 64 Victoria Road, Northcote
All proceeds support the Strathbogie Ranges Conservation Management Network and its ongoing work supporting landscape and community recovery.
New parks and reserves across Victoria
From 5 October 2026, more than 78,000 hectares of new and expanded parks and reserves will come under Parks Victoria management across Victoria’s Central West and Mirboo North.
Photo credit Sandy Scheltema
This is a huge achievement for the community groups that have spent more than 15 years campaigning, surveying, researching and taking legal action to protect these forests. The three new national parks secured in 2025 were the result of sustained work by groups including Wombat Forestcare, Victorian National Parks Association, Bendigo & District Environment Council, Ballarat Environment Network and Wombat Action Group alongside many local supporters and volunteers.
The changes include three new national parks, three conservation parks, seven new or expanded regional parks and almost 30 new or expanded nature and bushland reserves, across the lands of six Traditional Owner groups.
The campaign doesn’t end with the creation of the parks. Now we need to make sure these hard-won protections are actually delivered on the ground: that these forests are properly protected, adequately resourced and managed for conservation, and that Traditional Owners are genuine decision-makers on Country, alongside the communities who have fought for these places for decades.
Find out more about the new parks and the community campaign that helped secure them.
Hollows Case judgment coming soon
After more than two years of legal action, the Federal Court is expected to hand down its judgment soon in Warburton Environment’s case challenging the destruction of hollow-bearing trees in threatened species habitat by Forest Fire Management Victoria (file number as VID448/2024).
We’ll be sharing updates as soon as we have them, so follow VFA on social media and keep an eye out. And if you can, we’d love your support in court when the judgment is handed down. This case matters for the protection of threatened wildlife and the future of Victoria’s forests.
Correction: SOSF drone survey reveals more Greater Gliders
Our apologies — we got our wires crossed in last month’s newsletter about the SOSF drone survey. Here’s the correct version.
Our friends at Save Our Strathbogie Forest (SOSF) have been using new technology to get a clearer picture of the Southern Greater Glider population in the Tallangalook Barjarg–Sandy Creek planned burn area.
Independent thermal drone surveys in winter of 2025 detected high numbers of Greater Gliders, providing important new evidence about the wildlife living in the forest of the Sandy Creek catchment. Results have been provided to DEECA, and SOSF are urging DEECA to remove the area from their burn plans, and to refer it to the Federal environment department under the EPBC Act.
Importantly, the burn was put on hold last fire season after DEECA received the survey data, giving some hope for the future.
SOSF is planning further surveys this spring, supported by new community grant funding. Their work highlights a familiar problem: community groups are often having to do the wildlife surveys that government should be doing before deciding to burn forests.
View looking south-west of the proposed 2000 ha Barjarg-Sandy Creek planned burn (yellow polygon) in the Strathbogie Forest. Location of the Sandy Creek Falls indicated by the arrow. Supplied by SOSF.
Meet the Glossies
Scarlet Sykes Hesterman has created a brilliant new zine about the South-eastern Glossy Black-Cockatoo, shining a light on their unique behaviours and the threats facing their habitat in East Gippsland / Gunaikurnai Country.
The size of the East Gippsland population is uncertain: estimates range from as few as 35–40 birds to more than 1,000. What is clear is that their habitat is being seriously impacted and these fantastic birds need our attention.
Read the zine, learn about the Glossies and find out how you can help. You can also download a copy and learn how to make your own zine at Scarlet’s website under Make: Read the zine and make your own
New paper challenges a recent Victorian bushfire myth
Ian Penna’s new paper Rebutting a recent Victorian bushfire myth in The Victorian Naturalist takes apart key claims in the 2022 paper ‘The Curse of Conservation’. Penna shows that the 1970 Land Conservation Act did not prohibit burning on public land, that the claimed wave of catastrophic fires following the Act is not supported by the fire record, and that the evidence for historical grazier burning in the Snowy–Buchan forests is weak.
The paper raises important questions about how this evidence has been used to argue that conservation policy caused Victoria’s bushfire problems.
Mountains to Rivers Festival 2026
Celebrate Taungurung Country, culture and community at the inaugural Mountains to Rivers Festival at Tahbilk Winery on Saturday 7 November.
With the theme Biik Nganyin Datbu – Caring for our Country, the family-friendly festival features First Nations music and performances, cultural workshops, storytelling, wetlands walks, bush food, markets and nature play.
Saturday 7 November, 10am–4pm
Tahbilk Winery
This is a no-alcohol event. More information: https://wawabiik.com.au/mtrfest/
Early bird tickets are on sale now
Recommended Reading
12 Sept Victorian government and opposition betray native forests By Katherine Wilson A defeated motion in Victoria’s parliament for more transparency around state forest operations illustrates the misconception that Labor is the major party most likely to protect the environment.
31 August Do 'fuel breaks' stack up for us and our forests?, Chris Taylor & David Lindenmayer
Get Vic State Election ready with Build a Ballot
With the Victorian election coming up, now’s a good time to start getting election ready. Build a Ballot is a free, non-partisan tool that helps you research where candidates and parties stand on the issues that matter to you, then build your own voting plan.
Sign up now to get updates when the Victorian Build a Ballot goes live: buildaballot.org.au
VFA turns 5 — and we need a venue!
The Victorian Forest Alliance turns five this month, so we’re planning a big end-of-year VFA bushdance to celebrate five years of campaigning, community organising, forest adventures, ratbags, rallies, research and fighting for Victoria’s forests.
We’re looking for a venue in early December that:
• has a wooden floor suitable for a bushdance
• is accessible by public transport
• can fit a good crowd
More details coming soon. Keep an eye on our socials.
Can you help? Please email us at [email protected] with a venue recommendation, a contact who might be able to help, or to volunteer with the organising crew!
Thank you from all of us at the VFA
Thanks for standing with Victoria’s forests. Every person who speaks up, gets involved and brings others along helps build the movement we need to protect them. With this gorgeous spring weather, see you out there!
With heartfelt thanks and solidarity,
Nic- Secretary, Victorian Forest Alliance
https://www.victorianforestalliance.org.au/
We acknowledge that the Victorian Forest Alliance operates on the sovereign land of First Nations Peoples. The forests we defend and restore are unceded Lands.
We recognise and respect that the forests we work to protect exist on a number of Sovereign Aboriginal Nations, and we pay our respects to Elders past and present.