August 7, 2024

Protecting critical habitat

Note: This page contains images which may be distressing for some.

The dead glider was small; a few handfuls of chocolate-coloured fur lying on the forest floor at a logging site in the Yarra Ranges National Park.

Southern greater gliders like this are so rare they are approaching extinction, and there was an outcry in May this year when the dead animal was found at the site of an extensive Department of Environment (DEECA) tree-felling operation bordering the Yarra Ranges National Park.  

Observers believed it was killed when the hollow-bearing tree it was sleeping in was destroyed. Recent reports of its presence in the tree had been ignored.

Community conservation group Friends of Leadbeater’s Possum, represented by EJA lawyers, has made an urgent legal request for the Victorian government to formally protect the habitat of southern greater gliders, Leadbeater's possums and yellow-bellied gliders from logging and other ongoing threats.

They sent the request to the Minister for the Environment, Steve Dimopoulos, and the Secretary of the Environment Department, asking them to use the powers they have to protect critical areas of forest where the three rare possum species live until the marsupials are no longer listed as threatened.

These arboreal possums depend on hollow-bearing trees to survive, and their habitat remains at risk from the long-term impacts of decades of commercial logging, ongoing logging on private land, tree felling conducted by the Environment Department’s fire agency and so-called "salvage logging", the legal request says.

And climate change only increases the pressure.

“It is clear that the situation for the Leadbeater’s Possum is dire and the Greater Glider and Yellow-bellied Glider are facing a similar fate,” says the community group.

“The science is stark and the current situation is clearly unacceptable.”

“The Environment Minister needs to protect this habitat so the Leadbeater’s possum — the state’s faunal emblem — has a place to live.

Leadbeater’s possums are critically endangered because of the destruction of their habitat over the last 60 years, so all remaining habitat needs to be protected to give them any chance of surviving into the future.” 
— Steve Meacher, Friends of Leadbeater's Possum President

What needs to happen to protect habitat?

The Victorian government already has clear nature protection powers. It needs to use its own laws to recognise areas of forest as “critical habitat”, essential for the survival of these animals. 

The Minister can then issue habitat protection orders over these areas. These orders can have conditions attached, such as restricting logging and requiring restoration.

The Victorian government has issued a critical habitat determination only once, in the 1990s, and it was revoked only weeks later.

A recent report revealed that critical habitat laws across Australia are "woefully underused" and called for urgent action from state and federal governments to stop ecosystem decline. This request gives Victoria the opportunity to lead the way.

“The end of native forest logging in Victoria was momentous, but our government urgently needs to protect threatened native wildlife, which is still at risk.

The science is clear – we are in an extinction and climate crisis – and these animals are facing extinction precisely because of threats to their habitat.

Our laws offer powerful solutions and it's time to use them.”
— Natalie Hogan, Environmental Justice Australia Lawyer

What is happening?

In March, the federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek launched a national plan to protect Victoria's state emblem, the Leadbeater’s possum, saying logging and bushfires were having a “devastating impact” on its habitat. 

The new Recovery Plan confirmed that all current and suitable future Leadbeater's possum habitat is critical to its survival, as the species recovers from the legacy impacts of logging and other ongoing threats.

Where's the gap?

The government isn't using their protection powers.

In 2020 Victoria’s main biodiversity protection law (the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 (Vic)) was strengthened to protect important wildlife and the natural places where they live. But the Secretary of the Department of Environment has still not made any critical habitat determinations. 

Recently, the Victorian National Parks Association asked that this power be used to protect the Mount Donna Buang Wingless Stonefly, a tiny, brown, critically endangered fly that lives on Melbourne’s urban fringe.

The Scientific Advisory Committee agreed, but last month the secretary rejected the request.

A “critical habitat” determination would have meant long-term protection for the endangered wingless stonefly which can outlive most other insects with a lifespan of over two years.

The stonefly lives in a small area facing major threats including climate change, bushfires, and water pollution, meaning it needs special management.

Now it may become extinct.

“Victoria’s environment laws are supposed to ensure all species flourish in the wild and have the ability to adapt to change but so far the government has failed to apply the law to protect these possums and gliders.

Having laws that protect critical habitat is no use if they sit on the shelf unused for 35 years – it's time for Government to take our environment laws seriously and apply them to protect wildlife facing extinction.”
— Danya Jacobs, Environmental Justice Australia special counsel