More than 65,000 hectares of forests in central west Victoria officially became national parks on Monday, October 5, after a law passed in November 2025 took effect. The Victorian National Parks Association celebrated the moment with Wombat Forestcare, the Wilderness Society and local groups that campaigned for more than 20 years to protect the forests. Parliament passed the law creating the parks in November 2025, and today that law takes effect and the parks become official, the association said. The new parks cover forests in the Wombat and surrounding regions of central Victoria, locking in protection for native wildlife habitat and water catchments. Conservation groups called it a landmark win for nature in the state, ending decades of logging pressure in the area. The declaration is among the largest additions to Victoria’s national park estate in recent years. For the campaigners who spent two decades pushing for the change, Monday marks the payoff of one of Australia’s longest-running forest protection fights.