Back in 2020 it was estimated by the Parliament Budget Office that an immediate shutdown of the same industry would cost $15 million in the first three years before savings would appear over a decade. Seems to have been an underestimate. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

How I feel about people thinking they are geniuses for putting the word "Great" in front of a generic descriptor of what's in that National Park

Ah the grapevine, I'm not a subscriber. Tbh I've seen a lot of wild things said that appear to arise from it, but I may be proven wrong!

My point being, it feels like veacs/LCC role for many decades has been about allocating lands respectively between logging and parks. It's served other purposes but that was a major feature of Grampians, alpine, east Gippsland, box Ironbark, Otways, river red gum assessment etc.

Do you have a copy of the Silver report? I'd love to see it. I may be wrong but i didnt think VEAC influenced funding for PV? Beyond that - don't know what will happen. Though, with the end of logging, a lot of the rationale and distinction of national parks and state forests changes, in my opinion.

A review in 2021 showed that more tree fern tags from from the Otways in Vic than all of Tasmania. And Victoria collects no fee for tag which means there is no monitoring. Always baffled me where all these ferns come from - plantations as they are harvested? Private land? It's just so much.

True but it's a bigger systemic problem I think. I once got told by a prominent green politician they couldn't publicly ask for more funding for Parks as it would undermine their case for more National Parks. You can imagine how depressed and disillusioned that made me feel!

As a former parks staff once said to me - Parks don't acquire new parks, they get saddled with them. It's an odd model when you think about it - more and more expected from an agency that has less and less.

Near my hometown in the Dandenong Ranges NP, I think it took about eight years for a walking bridge to be fixed after some storms. And that was in a high tourism, high visitation park. So maybe 16 years for you?

"maintaining existing parks" doesn't sound very proactive. Unfortunately I think the focus for many years has been the political sugar hit that comes with announcing new parks, rather than the slightly duller but very important work in funding them and proactively managing existing parks.

An internal grant from my university to support parents continuing their research while on a career gap. And yes, seeing what one comes up with is the point of research. Go well Ben!

Yup, have gotten some (independent) funds to get a research assistant to collect that data while I'm on paternity leave for six months. Thanks for unblocking me to ask this.