The Victorian National Parks Association-commissioned Lonergan Research survey polled 1000 voters across the state and shows four in five Victorian voters back end to sand mining in last remaining Western Port Woodlands.
A new state-wide poll has shown four in five Victorian voters back end to sand mining in last remaining Western Port Woodlands.
Four in five respondents support better protection for the Bass Coast’s Western Port Woodlands, which stretch from Nyora to Grantville east of French Island and just an hour from Melbourne.
The Victorian National Parks Association-commissioned Lonergan Research survey polled 1000 voters across the state. Some 31 per cent of voters strongly support better protecting Western Port Woodlands, while another 49 per cent expressed support for doing so.
The findings come weeks after citizen scientists detected Australia’s largest owl, the threatened Powerful Owl, and the critically endangered Southern Brown Bandicoot within the Adams Creek area near Lang Lang. Much of the area is set to be cleared and mined for sand. Southern brown bandicoots, which are listed under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Protection (EPBC) Act, were recently detected via camera trapping at new sites in the Adams Creek area. Powerful Owls, Australia’s largest owl species, are listed as threatened under Victoria’s threatened species legislation.
Despite the presence of several endangered animal and plant species, the state government has designated around 70 per cent of the woodland area as an interest area for sand mining, with many new mines under consideration by the Andrews Government.
VNPA spokesman Jordan Crook said recent photos and recordings of endangered wildlife have reinforced the need for an end to sand mining in the woodlands.
“With such high community support and the detection of Powerful Owls and Southern Brown Bandicoots there is a strong need to protect the woodlands, not lose them to sand mining. Once they are gone they are gone forever,” he said.
Save Western Port Woodlands spokesperson Tim O’Brien said essential habitat for these endangered species disappears with each new mine opening and expansion.
“How much more evidence of rare and endangered flora and fauna do we have to put before the Victorian government before it calls a halt to sand miners ripping out their habitat? What is the point of legislation for the protection of rare and endangered species if it is blatantly ignored or, worse, when it is the government itself that is putting these species at risk.”
Many community and conservation groups are supporting the campaign for a moratorium on new mining licences in the woodlands.
A report commissioned by the Victorian National Parks Association found the Western Port Woodlands are full of rare and endangered wildlife such as loalas and lace monitors but lack solid protection leaving them vulnerable to development and sand mining operations.
