Protect Our Precious Western Grasslands!

For over 15 years, the Victorian Government has promised to deliver the Western Grassland Reserve, 15,000 hectares of critically endangered grasslands in Melbourne’s west. Instead of protecting Country, they’ve delivered fast-tracked approvals for developers while turning a blind eye to illegal destruction, dumping, and poisoning.

Developers are bulldozing irreplaceable ecosystems and treating penalties as just another “cost of doing business.” Meanwhile, community and Traditional Owners are left watching our grasslands vanish.

This must end.

We the community of the West call on the Victorian Parliament to:

1. Deliver the Western Grassland Reserve in full, immediately purchase the 15,000 hectares promised.
2. Protect what’s left, no more destruction under the false promise of “offsets.” If it’s gone, it’s gone forever.
3. Restore what has already been destroyed, developers must pay for real restoration, and receive punitive consequences for deliberate destruction.
4. Create an independent watchdog, which enables the community to escalate concerns of clearing or dumping & acts as a mechanism to audit conservation efforts.
5. Enforce harsher penalties for destruction, make environmental crimes cost more than a developer’s profit margin.
6. Respect and resource Indigenous led land management practices, embed Traditional Owners in the management of Country. Current legislate does not require engagement with Traditional Owner groups at any stage of acquisition or conservation.
7. Engage community and schools: fund programs, signage, and education so people can celebrate and defend our grasslands.

Why this matters:

• Only 1% of Victoria’s native grasslands survive, making them more endangered than the Great Barrier Reef.
• Grasslands are home to critically endangered species like the Striped Legless Lizard, Golden Sun Moth, Growling Grass Frog, and Spiny Rice-flower, species found nowhere else on earth.
• These grasslands are a powerful form of carbon sequestration, drawing carbon dioxide from the air and locking it in their soils. Destroying them is exacerbating the climate crisis.
• With many residential areas in the West built on flood plains, the grasslands act as an important natural filtration system preventing and mitigating flooding events. 

In 2020, the Victorian Auditor General exposed catastrophic failures of the Melbourne Strategic Assessment, the legislation meant to facilitate the protection and conservation of the Western Grassland Reserve. It is time the community demanded the government to make good on what was already promised to us. In 2021, the Inquiry into Ecosystem Decline recommended the immediate acquisition of the Western Grassland Reserve, emphasing the importance of early conservation.  Without proper management or oversight grasslands all over the West have been deliberately destroyed from the 2021 illegal dumping of asbestos in Truganina to the 40 hectares of native grassland bulldozed at Mt Cottrell in February 2025.

We are running out of time, we need to save our grasslands now!

This is about our voice. it’s about protecting Country, honouring commitments, and holding developers accountable. If the government can deliver for developers, it can deliver for Country, climate, and community.