Woodland protection gathers pace

17/7/2026

Resources Minister Lily D'Ambrosio: sand overlay lifted from former Holden Proving Ground

By Catherine Watson

The campaign to protect the Western Port Woodlands reached another milestone last Friday when Resources Minister Lily D'Ambrosio announced the removal of a sand quarrying overlay from several sites, including the former Holden Proving Ground.

Removing the Extractive Industry Interest Area overlay has been a priority of the Save Western Port Woodlands (SWPW) campaign.

Minister D’Ambrosio made her announcement to local conservation groups at the Shuntoff lookout, against a backdrop of the bay and woodlands.

“This decision means the community has more certainty about quarry development whilst ensuring this beautiful environment is enjoyed for generations to come,” she said.

While the overlay has been removed from the proving ground, and several other sites, it remains over most of the woodland outside the reserves. SWPW will continue to press for its removal or refinement as the industry shifts its focus to sand resources on cleared farmland near Lang Lang and Nyora.

Bass MP Jordan Crugnale thanked the local community for their sustained advocacy, dedication, hard work and collective expertise.

“We all want to see this area protected. The rich biodiversity of the Western Port Woodlands and surrounding landscape is too important to lose.

“With the Distinctive Areas and Landscapes declaration, the endorsed Statement of Planning Policy, the interim Environmental Significance application now under assessment, and continued advocacy for a whole-of-Western Port Bay strategic framework, the key pieces are coming together.”

The next step

As recommended by the Statement of Planning Policy for Bass Coast, Bass Coast Shire Council has begun an environmental assessment to survey and map the woodlands in preparation for an Environmental Significance Overlay (ESO).

The work to determine and implement a permanent ESO will take at least a couple of years and they have requested the Planning Minister, Sonya Kilkenny, to apply an interim ESO until May 2028 to prevent further loss or fragmentation while the work is done.

An alliance of five conservation groups, South Gippsland Conservation Society, Phillip Island Conservation Society, Gippsland Threatened Species Action Group, Victorian National Parks Association and SWPW, has written to Ms Kilkenny, backing the request.

In its letter to Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny, the alliance says an ESO is the most effective planning tool to safeguard the ecological and biodiversity values of the Western Port Woodlands.

It argues that an interim overlay would provide immediate protection while giving landowners and the community time to understand its impacts and help shape the objectives, permit triggers and guidelines for a permanent overlay.

An interim ESO would also provide greater certainty for prospective purchasers by signalling that this landscape may be subject to future conservation protections.

The overlay would not stop resource development where it does not diminish the values of the woodlands.

Catherine Watson is a member of Save Western Port Woodlands.

6 Comments

Robbie Viglietti

17/7/2026 02:56:40 pm

To all the self-proclaimed "Woodland Warriors", former and current greens Councillors...
Please stop spreading lies, misinformation and distorting the truth to create a narrative to support your radical greens agenda of creating a Westernport National Park.

It is time that you clearly define what constitutes “The Woodlands”.

Catherine Watson describes the “Westernport Woodlands” as “a fragmented but ecologically significant landscape under increasing pressure”…

Based on the information published in local print media last week (repeatedly recycled in “Save the Woodlands” propaganda), the “woodlands” is a blotch on a map shown covering a length of over 30 kilometres. Based on this, one could be fooled into thinking that this entire area is a “woodland”.

This is far from reality; the landscape in this area is well beyond “fragmented”.

With the exception of the Crown Land in the Grantville and Gurdies Nature Conservation reserves (which, ironically, were gazetted for Sand and Gravel extraction in 1921 and are now preserved for Nature Conservation), the entire region has been cleared for agriculture, viticulture, industry, commerce, infrastructure and townships.

Radical environmentalists, including past and present greens Councillors, continue to spread the mythology that the “woodlands” are under threat from sand quarrying (not “mining”; check your pronouns - apparently the greens place great importance on pronouns so please use the correct terminology).

The statement made by former Councillor Micheal Wheeland exemplifies this. He is quoted as saying “With the Big Build encouraging voracious sand mining efforts in the Western Port Woodlands, and the poor protection in planning legislation, it soon became clear that the challenge was instead to stop vegetation cover dropping even further.”

In the Bass coast shire, there are applications for quarries in land that has already (historically) been cleared for agriculture, however, there are no applications for new quarries in “woodlands”; feel free to check the DECCA State Government website.

Why? Because there are no fewer than 6 State and Federal Acts of Parliament as well as a major State Government strategy document that, for all practical intents and purposes, eliminates the possibility of any quarry being established in real “woodlands”.

Preservation of the “woodlands” has already been secured. Saving the woodlands is a solution without a problem; a means for greens Councillors past and present to flex their environmental muscle, beating up on an industry that is essential for building every home, school, hospital, sports ground, water treatment plant, café, restaurant, road, bridge, drain, in fact, every built structure in our community.

The attitude of past and current greens Councillors reeks of NIMBYism at its most extreme; everybody wants the benefits of the sand needed for the construction of our community, however it should be somewhere else..

Claims are made that the industry should be pushed further afield… ironically, this will result in greater environmental impact due to increased transport requirements.

Returning to the Bass Coast, there are two historical quarries active in real woodlands; specifically, the Grantville Nature Conservation Reserve.

These are legacy operations over 50 years old that occupy approximately 5% of the Reserve area.

Based on the current legislative protections, THERE IS NO PRACTICAL POSSIBILITY OF THESE SITES EXTENDED BEYOND THEIR CURRENT BOUNDARIES.

The ultimate irony is that one of these 2 of these quarries is operated by the Bass Coast Shire Council…Work Authority 784! This quarry is attached to the Grantville landfill (tip) and has historically been used to source lining and cover material for the Grantville landfill.

Past and present greens Councillors continue to decry the end of the evil mines (quarries) that are apparently destroying our “woodlands”, yet by their own definition, the Council is today complicit in the supposed destruction of these very “woodlands”.

Even more interesting is the fact that there appears to be no active rehabilitation plan for the landfill or quarry; I have repeatedly requested to see a Council rehabilitation plan for the quarry and landfill however, to this date have had no response.

Having been an industry operator for over 40 years, I suggest that the Council is sitting on an unfunded liability that will cost the Shires residents multiple millions of dollars.

This should be the true outrage confronting our community.

Quarrying is a transient land use that, by todays strict environmental standards, will leave more vegetation at the end use than the cleared agricultural land they typically occupy.

This is in stark contrast to land used for agriculture,

Neil Rankine

17/7/2026 06:50:39 pm

Mr Vigliette, to answer your question about what exactly the extent of the Woodlands is, well that will be define by the ultimate Environmental Significance Overlays (including in Cardinia and Sth Gippsland Shires). This will show the reserves, high value vegetated blocks of public and private land and the connections needed to ensure the environmental values persist. Some Woodlands will be outside this mapping but it is a compromise, as is anything in planning. As for the rest of your response today, that you have cut and pasted from your last response to a Bass Coast Post article on the successes of the 'Greenies', as you call them, check out my response last edition.

Robbie Viglietti

17/7/2026 08:39:59 pm

Hello Neil.

I have copy and pasted because the article is fundamentally a copy and paste.

Why are you not holding the Bass Coast Shire Council to account regarding their active quarry and landfill (tip) inside a Nature Conservation Reserve?

As a former Councillor, why did you not stop the Councils quarrying and landfill operations inside a Nature Conservation Reserve?

As a former Councillor, are you able to enlighten the community as to the rehabilitation plans for the Councils own quarry and landfill?

As a former Councillor are you able to explain if there are any unfunded liabilities relating to the Council operated quarry and landfill inside the Grantville Nature Conservation Reserve?

Again, I look forward to your explanations and again, I welcome the opportunity to present the facts regarding extractive industries in Bass Coast Shire anywhere, anytime in any public forum.

Robbie Viglietti

17/7/2026 09:18:08 pm

P.S;
I offer a footnote to my previous comments; I apologize for not being completely thorough in my previous post; I am engaging in valuable Friday night gin drinking time....

Neil; I do not believe you have explained how 6 separate acts of State and Federal Government legislation as well as a strategy for sand extraction in the Westernport Region (not "THE WOODLANDS"), developed 30 years ago and based on facts that prioritizes environmental protection (and developed by an amazing group of individuals including renowned environmentalists Phil and Anne Westwood) and balanced with the needs for a modern society, is not sufficient protection for "THE WOODLANDS"...

Anywhere, anytime....

I look forward to your explanation when i emerge from a gin induced stupor....

Apologies for the iI have a footnote to my previous post; apologies for the redaction, i am in the midst of valuable gin drinking time.....

my redacted post; i was resonding whilst attempting to uphold valuable gin-drinking time...

maintain

I still do not understand how, welocme your explanation as tgo why the "woodland"

Robbie Viglietti

17/7/2026 09:27:47 pm

I blame the gin...

Neil Rankine

17/7/2026 10:02:41 pm

Perhaps you now know the values of the Woodlands now depends on far more than the Conservation Reserves protected in the early 1990s (thanks largely to the efforts of locals and the Land Conservation Council). Values are declining and that is fundamentally why we fight to improve things.
The reserve at the top of the Woodlands Corridor is still to be gazetted, hopefully more on that soon.
I generally accept that quarries already operating, are not something we will get to remove, the state government's Resources department has unparalleled weight, well above conservation. We will always attempt to hold the quarries to their obligations however and that is difficult, due to the above mismatch as you well know. We have not been able to access most of the requirements for Bass Coast Quarries.
During your ownership of the quarry in the Grantville Nature Conservation Reserve my reading of your Work Permit conditions indicated that you were not properly surveying ahead in the next areas to be removed and indeed not inviting community input as you were supposed to. Can you tell me if and how you were if I am wrong? Did you also as the conditions required, establish a native plant nursery on site or did you largely 'let nature take back' the early 'rehabilitated' area? I understand some 200 giant grass trees were removed some few years back and the conditions would require their replanting in suitable areas, can you tell me how many of those are still alive?
If you look at historical Google Earth images of the council landfill, once I believe in your family's hands, you will see that they have not changed the footprint of the operating area other than beginning to 'rehabilitate' the early waste burial cells. I have been involved in attempting to ensure they behave as good citizens and generally I have found them to be so, most recently with a controlled burn on one of their boundaries where extraordinary efforts were made to work with all agencies and community to do as much as possible to limit impact on biodiversity and habitat in an area so close to residences.
As for unfunded liabilities, EPA requirements for rehabilitation of municipal landfills have become increasingly stringent. In my time on council, now ten years ago, we did indeed anticipate and fund the requirements of the time, I cannot tell you the current situation there. Obviously though, the council is performing that service on the communities behalf, and we would all I hope, expect that to be done in such as way as to be as efficient and environmentally responsible as possible.

Woodland protection gathers pace

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