Goolengook

The Goolengook valley is a remote forested region of south-eastern Australia, located near Orbost in the far eastern corner of Victoria. It contains a number of forest types including a rare warm temperate/cool temperate "Overlap Rainforest".

Goolengook is approximately 90 km² of forest. Some of the forest has been logged but there is over 20 km² of mature and old growth forest remaining. Some of the best stands of temperate rainforest for this part of Australia occur there.

It is the traditional land of the Bidawal Aboriginal people.

Goolengook was the centrepiece of a campaign to protect all of the regions old growth and high conservation value forests during the Regional Forest Agreement process established by the State and Federal Governments. Currently (August 2006) the State Government has banned logging while an independent (but government appointed) assessment is carried out to determine if it should be in the Errinundra National Park.

It is one of many contentious sites for logging in the region, as well as a focal point for community opposition to logging old growth forest in Victoria and was also Australia's longest running forest blockade, which ran from 1997 to 2002. Many arrests were made during forest protests and blockades in GoolengookFact|date=February 2007.

After ten years of campaigning the protection of Goolengook, the Victorian State election of November 2006 saw the Australian Labor party returned, with a commitment to protect the Goolengook block within a new National Park [Ashley Gardiner, [http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,20776691-5008560,00.html Old growth forests protected] ,
Herald Sun, November 18, 2006] .

Ecology

It is home to several endangered species such as the Long-footed potoroo, Sooty owl and Spot-tailed quoll. The area also supports some of the best populations of the rare Slender Tree-fern in South-eastern Australia.

ee also

* Rainforest

External links

* [http://www.geco.org.au GECO - Goongerah Environment Centre]
* [http://www.goolengook.forests.org.au A 2002 website about the Goolengook forest blockade]
* [http://www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/forests/victoria/east_gippsland/Goolengook/ Goolengook: One of the World's Greatest Old Growth Forests Threatened] , The Wilderness Society, April 22, 2002

References