Latest news and newsletters

Join us at Heyfield for our next dialogue!

GFD will be conducting its next dialogue at Heyfield on the 22nd and 23rd of November 2025. The event will be run from the Heyfield Wetland Centre and themed around forest recreation. It is a follow up to the Jindivick dialogue conducted last year.

Registration for the event is via Eventbrite and is free: Register here

Who can come?

Anyone can come along, we welcome all views and opinions, GFD is not affiliated to any group does not advocate for any particular view. Our dialogues are all about bringing a group of people together to share their thoughts and knowledge in a safe and respectful manner. It is about the conversation and building trust and relationships between people interested in the future or our forests. So if you are curious, willing to listen to others and share your views in a respectful and supportive manner then we would love to see you at the event.

When you come, we encourage you to share your views but to take off your uniform, represent yourself more than your organisation. As part of building trust we operate under Chatham house rules, we respect the confidentiality of people and their contributions at the event. We will write up and document a report of the event, but it will not attribute views or thoughts to individuals but rather be a record of the conversation.

What is the agenda?

We try to keep the event as informal as possible and allow free conversation but it is structured. So in broad terms the event is planned as follows

Saturday 22nd November

9:30 am arrive at the Heyfield Wetland Centre, The event will commence at 10

The morning will consist of introductions, getting to know participants and some context setting.

We will have a 'Forest Bathing' experience to get us outside in the wetlands as well

Lunch will be provided around 12:30 and then we will head out in the field

The afternoon will be dedicated to a field trip to sites close to Heyfield

Sites to be visited will include Blores Hill Mountain bike track, Ben Crouchan and the Knob Reserve

We will return to the Wetland Centre and finish up around 4pm

Saturday evening

For those who wish to join us, we have arranged a BBQ dinner at Abington Farm

Cost will be $30 per person

Sunday 23rd November

We will start at 9:00am at the Wetland Centre

We will review and reflect on the conversations from Saturday

Workshop some issues and challenges using the scoping paper for reference

Have a walk around the wetland centre with a wetland committee member

Lunch will be provided around 12:30

In the afternoon we will start to bring the conversation together for report writing

We will then finish with some reflection and where to from here

We expect to conclude mid afternoon to give people a chance to get home at a reasonable time

Scoping paper and background documents

We do rely on a scoping paper to provide participants with background on the theme and to help lead our discussions. It is recommended you look at this prior to the event

Download the Scoping Paper

Each dialogue we conduct covers a specific theme of forest management relavent to the forests of Gippsland. Previous dialogues have considered plantations, forest health and management post timber harvesting. In 2024 a discussion on forest recreation and the Great Outdoors taskforce was undertaken at Jindivick. It was agreed to continue this conversation and we will draw on the issues raised there to lead this dialogue on the challenges and opportunities confronting public access and enjoyment of our forests.

The dialogue will look at what this might mean to different stakeholders and communities, and work to find actionable recommendations to achieve balanced outcomes. The starting point will be the 5 key topics identified at Jindivick but will explore other ideas as well.

The 5 topics from Jindivick were:

local problems, local solutions - involving community

transparency and evaluation of Government policy

education

value of forest recreation - who benefits and who pays

forest behaviour - a charter of conduct

Event co-chairs

Our co-chairs for the two days are Liz Clay and Dan Salzman

Liz has a long history of environmental advocacy and involvement in community. Hailing from Noojee, LIz has ridden many of the horse trails of Gippsland and has a strong connection to people across the region.