Letter to all Victorian Recreational Fishing Associations

Dear Members

I am seeking your urgent support to stop the potential destruction of the Snobs Creek Fish Hatchery.

VicForests will be conducting industrial scale clear-fell logging within the Snobs Creek Valley. While a temporary Federal Court injunction is currently in place to prevent clear-fell logging going ahead, if this injunction was to be overturned in the next couple of months, logging will seriously affect the water quality, flow and temperature at the fish hatchery.

Data released under Freedom of Information indicates the average water temperature and turbidity at the hatchery have increased since logging commenced five years ago in the Snobs Creek Valley.

I live just below the hatchery and my father (Derek Falconer) spent his working life as manager of the facility and was a pioneer in respect to many of the successful breeding programs of salmonids and native fish here at Snobs Creek.

I am extremely concerned about the likely impact of the imminent forest destruction in the Snobs Creek catchment. The Fish Hatchery is critically dependent upon the quality of Snobs Creek water. Any disturbance to the catchment’s forest will seriously affect water quality. One only has to witness the destruction of forest biodiversity by clear felling operations in the adjacent Rubicon Valley, to understand my/our concern!

The site of Snobs Creek Fish hatchery was chosen for three key reason:

consistent low water temperatures and water purity critical for the survival and reproduction of trout.
Low evaporation due to the heavily timbered slopes and steepness of Snobs Creek valley.
year-round water supply

For more than 60 years Snobs Creek Hatchery has produced fish for recreational fisheries and stocked 200 waterways across Victoria. The hatchery produces and grows salmonids and native fish and was responsible for distributing 6 million fish across Victoria between April 2017 to April 2018.

In the 2016 to 2017 Financial Year, Victorian Anglers contributed over $8.5 million to the Victorian Government in Recreational Fishing Licenses. In 2015, it was estimated that amateur fishing added in excess of 7billion dollars to the Victorian economy.

Vic Forest and DELWP claim they care for our forests and consider local community needs. This is far from the actual truth! Their clear-felling practices of forests across the Central Highlands demonstrate a blatant disregard for forestry/ecological biodiversity.

Vic Forest’s sole modus operandi is to fulfill an out dated 80-year-old legislated contract to supply woodchips to the Australian Paper Mill (APM) which is wholly owned and controlled by a Japanese company(Nippon).

We won’t have a government run fish hatchery if logging continues on the scale seen in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMftBYm5acg&feature=youtu.be. See also https://youtu.be/uB76paZKWM0.

I urge you to take action and invite you to have a look at what is taking place in our area.

Also, please contact your local member of Parliament:

The Hon. Lily D’Ambrosio MP

Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change Minister for Suburban Development

lily.ambrosio@parliament.vic.gov.au

The Hon. Lisa Neville MP

Minister for Police Minister for Water

isa.neville@parliament.vic.gov.au

The Hon. John ErenMP

Minister for Tourism

john.eren@parliament.vic.gov.au