Last June, wild storms and floods ripped through 2 million hectares of public land in Victoria, uprooting trees and snapping them like matchsticks. The Wombat State Forest near Daylesford was strewn with fallen trees. Authorities estimated it could take two years to clear roads and debris. Now, residents have raised the alarm over salvage logging operations underway by state logging agency VicForests in the Wombat State Forest, including areas the Andrews government promised would become a new national park, the Wombat-Lerderderg National Park. In March, VicForests added 175 new salvage coupes in the Wombat and Cobaw state forests to their forestry schedule, saying these would allow “forest recovery operations” following the 2021 storms. Residents say approximately 80 of these are within the promised national park.