In the Supreme Court on March 13, 2024, it was announced VicForests would cease to exist from June 30 as part of the state government's decision to end native logging.

VicForests was responsible for logging operations in Wombat State Forest, located about 40 kilometres east of Daylesford, but despite the announcement, Wombat Action Group spokesperson Amy Calton is not celebrating the news.

She said the demise of VicForests meant logging operations would likely continue in the Wombat State Forest but under a different government body.

At the moment, Ms Calton said large areas of the forest were being stripped by Forest Fire Management Victoria, and in many cases the work was being carried out by the exact same contractors who worked for VicForests.

"I don't think anyone's relaxing just yet ... we're not seeing anything that looks like an end of logging happening," she said.

"They've pretty much shifted all of the contractors with VicForests across to Forest Fire Management.

"It's the same stuff going on with pretty much the entire workforce."

The announcement that VicForests would shut down within four months came during a Supreme Court hearing between the organisation and community group Wombat Forestcare, which alleged VicForests had breached threatened species surveying requirements.

These allegations are just one of the many controversies that have surrounded the organisation in recent years.

In the past two financial years, VicForests has posted commercial losses of $52.4 million and $60.1 million.

These losses were attributed to legal costs, which VicForests had accumulated while trying to fight allegations that it endangered threatened species during logging.

In November 2022, the Supreme Court found VicForests had failed to meet legal obligations to adequately survey for endangered greater gliders and yellow belly gliders, while the organisation was also found to have used taxpayer money to illegally spy on anti-logging campaigners.

The end of VicForests was eventually sealed in May 2023, when the state government announced it would end native logging in Victoria from January 1, 2024, along with a $200 million transition package.

As part of this transition, The Courier understands a process to move VicForest employees to new roles at the Department of Energy Environment and Climate Action [DEECA] is now underway, and contractors for the organsiation have also been offered five-year Forest and Fire Management Services agreements starting from July 1, 2024.

Once employed by Forest and Fire Management Services, Ms Calton claimed workers would be carrying out activities in the Wombat Forest that were out of date, and actually increased the risk of bushfires, as it involved removing logs and foliage that trap moisture in the ground.

She also said in many ways this was more dangerous to native wildlife than when VicForests was operating, as Forest Fire Management Victoria was not bound by the same animal surveying requirements as commercial loggers.

Because of this, Ms Calton has concerns for the significant number of threatened and endangered species, such as greater gliders, brush-tailed phascogales, and mountain skinks, which live in the forest.

"Now these guys are working for Forest Fire Management, under that banner they're not subject to the same regulations as timber harvesting, so there's no actual laws requiring them to survey for anything," she said.

"Suddenly it doesn't matter if there's gliders in there, this is no longer, according to them commercial harvesting, it's now bushfire management, so I guess to them the priorities are different."

These issues with forest fire management practices are something that Australian National University forest ecology research Professor David Lindenmayer agrees with.

He said in addition to threatening species and reducing biodiversity in the forest, current fire management practices would also make the land more flammable.

"My deep concern here is that many of the fundamentalist extreme pro-foresters, that will now be leaving VicForests, are now going to be absorbed into these agencies that are going to continue to badly damage forests," he said.

"It's really important to understand that some of these so-called fire management approaches that are going to remove large amounts of timber will actually make the forest more flammable, not less."

Mr Lindenmayer said this was because thinning caused forests' microclimates to change, which meant they became warmer and more vulnerable to extreme temperatures.

"The reality is that yes, native logging through the form of VicForests is now over, because it's uncommercial, it doesn't make any money, but now we're going to damage the forest to keep it in a flammable state for many decades ahead, and I don't think we should be doing that," he said.

"The problem here now is that if you have large amounts of log removal from forests, that's de facto logging.

"[The government] got rid of a rogue organisation like VicForests, thank god, but you're still doing some of the things that are degrading the forests and making the forests more flammable."

In response to questions from The Courier, a DEECA spokesperson said there was no financial incentive behind work in the Wombat Forest.

"Ongoing storm-recovery operations led by the Forest Fire Management Victoria in the Wombat are not conducted for a commercial purpose and are determined by bushfire risk," the statement said.

The DEECA spokesperson also said the state government was creating three national parks, two conservation parks, and seven new and expanded regional parks in western Victoria, but did not provide a timeline for when this would happen.

"This includes the creation of the Wombat-Lerderderg National Park covering more than 44,000 hectares between Daylesford and Bacchus Marsh," the statement said.

Until that eventuates, Ms Calton said the Wombat Action Group would continue to oppose all logging in Wombat Forest.

"As long as that's [logging] going on here, we're going to keep holding them to account and keep exposing the various dirty tricks they pull," she said.

"It's such a high value forest out here, it's too precious to have bulldozers running through the middle of it.

"They've announced the end of logging so many times as far as the Wombat is concerned, and it just doesn't stop happening."