In central Victoria, more than 65 thousand hectares of forest have been granted national park status — the largest expansion of protected areas in the past decade and a half. Parliament passed the law back in November 2025, and in early October 2026 it came into force, creating Mount Buangor, Pyrenees and the largest of them all — Wombat-Lerderderg National Park.
These forests are home to hundreds of rare and endangered species: greater gliders, powerful owls, platypuses, mountain skinks, brush-tailed phascogales and the critically vulnerable Mount Cole grevillea. Permanent national park status means that logging and industrial exploitation are banned here forever. For a continent that has lost more mammal species than any other in the modern era, such connected tracts of forest become a genuine buffer against further loss of biodiversity.
Behind this decision lie years of work by community organisations — the Victoria National Parks Association, Wombat Forestcare and the Wilderness Society. They prepared detailed environmental reports that persuaded the government to hold an inquiry and support the creation of the parks. Now Parks Victoria, together with the First Peoples — the Dja Dja Wurrung, Wadawurrung and Wurundjeri — will be developing management plans over the next twelve months.
The new parks not only conserve nature but also open up opportunities for tourism and recreation: hiking, camping, cycling routes. Local communities gain jobs, and residents of the state gain access to untouched corners where they can observe the life of the forest in its natural rhythm.
Steps like these show that consistent efforts by civil society, grounded in scientific data, are capable of turning vulnerable areas into reliable refuges for wildlife.
