The Heyfield 'Forest Recreation' Dialogue
On Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd of November 2025, 40 participants gathered at the Heyfield Wetland Centre to continue the conversation begun at Jindivick on forest recreation.
The intention was to build understanding between those with diverse views - less like an 'industry workshop', and more like a facilitated community engagement event.
A scoping paper was prepared to capture the conversation from Jindivick and set the scene for participants and what we hoped to explore over the weekend. Note that we encouraged participants to attend as individuals rather than as representatives of their employer (where applicable) and applied Chatham House rules to the discussion, so nothing that is said within the group is attributable to any one individual beyond the event.
Day 1 was a chance for everyone to get to know each other, get familiar with the dialogue approach and hear from a range of speakers both in the Wetland centre and on a field trip to a nearby Mountain bike park (Blores Hill) and popular camping site (Cheyne's bridge). Day 2 was a chance to reflect on this and work through some of the issues and opportunities for Gippsland's forests.
The event brought together a wide cross section of the community, all with a different interest in forests, their management and how they enjoy them. The following diagram represents the range of perspectives and diversity at the workshop. Not all voices were present, but we had a good mix of recreation users including 4wders, walkers, mountain bike riders, campers and forest therapists. We also had a broad range of land managers across private and public land, academics with forest and environmental expertise, locals, environmental groups and tourism representatives to name a few. The broader the group the better the conversation.
