The future of the Victorian native timber industry has been dealt a further blow after the Supreme Court ordered a halt to logging due to the impact of this summer's bushfires.
An environmental group argued in court that the devastation of the East Gippsland fires had placed further strain on threatened species in the state, and that areas untouched by fire in the Central Highlands, near Healesville, must not be logged.
The Supreme Court granted an interim injunction on Wednesday preventing logging in three coupes — areas to be harvested in the forests — ahead of a full hearing next month.
Justice Kate McMillan said there was "a real threat of a serious or irreversible damage to threatened species and their habitat should harvesting operations continue in the coupes".
"The recent bushfires have caused extensive environmental damage, the severity of which is only beginning to be understood,'' Justice McMillan said.
The action was taken by WOTCH — Wildlife of the Central Highlands — which argued the fires in East Gippsland had destroyed the habitat of threatened species including the greater glider, and that its remaining habitat in the Central Highlands required more protection from logging.
Premier Daniel Andrews has said the fires destroyed 40 per cent of the area in East Gippsland that had been earmarked for logging.
Mr Andrews said today he could not comment on the case because it was still before the court, but said it was too early to understand the full impact of the fires on flora and fauna or the logging industry.
Last year Mr Andrews announced that native timber logging would be phased out by 2030 in Victoria due to dwindling sustainable supplies.
"I don't think we yet know exactly what the impact is on the current timber release plan or our timber transition plan in terms of whether the volumes we thought would be available will be,'' Mr Andrews said.
"There has been impact from these fires, and we will have to assess what that impact is."
Environmental Justice Australia senior lawyer Danya Jacobs welcomed the interim injunction.
"This is a good result for our threatened species who suffered a huge blow after the catastrophic bushfire.
"Important unburnt habitat is now safe from logging, while this case moves to the next stage," she said.
The ABC has approached state-owned VicForests, the agency in charge of timber allocation, for comment.
