An irreplaceable grassland in Melbourne's west has been bulldozed, with authorities across all levels of government failing to protect it despite being aware of the destruction.
The privately owned land at 248–316 Faulkners Road, Mount Cottrell on Melbourne's western edge was destined to become part of the long-promised 15,000 ha Western Grassland Reserve.
The Reserve is a desperate attempt to protect the last large remaining patches of Critically Endangered grassland in Victoria. And it would be a place all Victorians can go to enjoy nature.
But despite local, state and federal authorities knowing the bulldozers were ripping through 40 hectares of the grassland throughout the holiday period and well into January, they all failed their obligations to protect it.
"Critically Endangered is the last step before extinction, and that grassland is irreplaceable," says Grassy Plains Network Facilitator Dr Adrian Marshall.
"Once stretching from Melbourne to South Australia, today only 1 per cent of our grasslands survive. These native flower meadows are now heading towards irreversible decline.
"This is an outrageous and deeply concerning situation. Developers are cynically undermining the rule of law for profit. They are robbing the future residents of Melbourne's outer west of public reserve land of great natural beauty and extraordinary conservation value.
"Who's in charge here? This native grassland was supposed to be protected under national and state laws. It has a Public Acquisition Overlay, an Environmental Significance Overlay, and is zoned Rural Conservation. Yet no one stopped it being cleared."
The Western Grassland Reserve is part of the Melbourne Strategic Assessment (MSA), a program put in place in 2010 to protect not just our last grasslands, but the endangered frogs, lizards, bandicoots, orchids and all the other threatened wildlife that call them home.
"The Melbourne Strategic Assessment needs to deliver what it promised, not just be a shortcut for windfall developer profit,' says Dr Marshall.
"These developers need to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. They won't stop until someone makes a very expensive example of them. The government is also going to have to find additional grassland to reserve in compensation for this loss. The annihilation of this irreplaceable grassland is devastating.
"We want an overhaul of how compliance with environmental laws is enforced too. The current system is broken. National and state environmental laws need to be strengthened, and we need a nature cop with real legal teeth."
Environmental Justice Australia co-chief executive officer and lawyer Elizabeth McKinnon said Australia's state and federal environment laws were failing to protect rare and precious species. While not able to comment specifically on the Mt Cottrell land clearing project, Ms McKinnon said:
"Time and time again environmental lawyers work on cases where Australia's unique and endangered plants are destroyed, or animals find their homes bulldozed around them. It is clear that our nature laws are not strong enough to properly protect them.
"Even as endangered species inch closer to extinction, we see repeated and clear breaches of environmental laws around Australia. State and federal government need to enforce these laws, or they are not worth the paper they are written on.
"Without full reform of Australia's nature laws, and their proper enforcement, more and more unique plants and animals will become extinct.
"The Albanese government has broken its promise to reform our nature laws so they work better for environmental protection. We will continue to push any future federal government to improve and uphold our environmental laws."
This isn't the first time MSA grassland intended for environmental protection and public benefit has been destroyed.
In 2022, Conservation Area 9, only 4km from the latest tragedy, was destroyed, smothered under asbestos-contaminated fill.
On Tuesday 18 February 2025, the landowner of Conservation Area 9 pled guilty in Sunshine Magistrates' Court. The landowner and his company were fined a combined $170,000, plus $90,000 costs. The landowner escaped criminal conviction.
Key Facts:
- The privately owned land at 248–316 Faulkners Road, Mount Cottrell 3024 was almost entirely cleared of its native grassland over December 2024 and January 2025.
- The land is subject to a Public Acquisition Overlay, has an Environmental Significance Overlay and is zoned Rural Conservation.
- The land is intended to be purchased as part of the Western Grassland Reserve (WGR) under the Melbourne Strategic Assessment. Only 25% of the 15,000 hectares of the WGR has so far been purchased.
- The Western Grassland Reserve is intended to become a public asset to protect Critically Endangered grassland and the threatened plants and animals, such as Growling Grass Frogs, Striped Legless Lizards and Spiny Rive-flower, that call it home.
- In 2020, the Victorian Auditor General released a scathing report documenting the failures of the Melbourne Strategic Assessment. Victoria's Inquiry into Ecosystem Decline, tabled in Parliament in 2021, recommended immediate purchase of the Western Grassland Reserve (Recommendation 18). The state government has yet to formally respond to those findings, let alone act on them.
