Forest campaigners have renewed efforts to stop the New South Wales Forestry Corporation’s destructive logging in Bulga State Forest, reports Pip Hinman.
greater glider
The federal and Victorian governments announced on March 27 a two-year extension of the controversial Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) for East Gippsland, the North East and the Central Highlands. They will be reassessed at the end of the two-year period.
National Threatened Species Day on September 7 is held each year to commemorate the day the last Tasmanian Tiger died in captivity in a Hobart zoo in 1936.
Environment groups Goongerah Environment Centre (GECO), Wildlife of the Central Highlands and Fauna and Flora Research Collective decided to commemorate the day this year by presenting an invoice for $2 million to the state government.
The groups called on the state government to better protect species such as the threatened Greater Glider and Victoria’s animal emblem, the critically endangered Leadbeater’s possum.
VicForests has been forced to abandon planned logging operations in forest on the Errinundra plateau in East Gippsland after a citizen science survey recorded a large population of protected Greater Gliders.
Goongerah Environment Centre conducted a late night survey in forest where logging had just commenced. The survey recorded 15 greater gliders in 800m.
The Department of Environment will now create a protection zone for the species. The logging rules require a 100 hectare protected area to be zoned where more than 10 greater gliders are detected in a 1km survey transect.