The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) has partnered with VicForests and Parks Victoria to undertake the largest forest restoration effort in the State’s history.
In a statement the Minister for the Environment and Climate Change, Lily D’Ambrosio said the restoration effort had begun with an operation that airlifted tonnes of eucalypt seeds into areas of forest which were devastated by last summer’s bushfires.
Ms D’Ambrosio said that funding from Bushfire Recovery Victoria’s State Recovery Plan was helping to recover thousands of hectares of burnt Mountain and Alpine Ash forest.
“Between May and July more than 4.5 tonnes of eucalypt seed, three tonnes of which came from VicForests’ contingency reserves, was spread by helicopter across nearly 11,500 hectares of fire ravaged country, an area the equivalent of about 5,650 MCGs,” Ms D’Ambrosio said.
“Thousands of the seeds are currently growing into stunning giants of the Australian bush, including the iconic Mountain Ash – the tallest flowering plant in the world – and, Alpine Ash which also reaches a significant size,” she said.
Ms D’Ambrosio said the re-seeding was focused on areas of nationally distinctive forests in Gippsland and North East Victoria that had suffered the impacts of fire in 2003, 2007 and 2014, and were severely burned again in the 2019-2020 bushfire season.
