Logging destroys rare possum habitat
By Bronwen Beechey
MELBOURNE — Conservationists have expressed outrage over the destruction of a prime habitat of one of Victoria's rarest mammals, the Leadbeater's possum.
Two weeks ago, loggers destroyed five hectares of regrowth forest near Powelltown in Victoria's central highlands, the only area where the endangered possum is found.
The state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has admitted responsibility for the logging, stating that it was due to a mapping error. The area had originally been set aside as a coupe (reserve) when reports from the Victorian Field Naturalists Club, and the department's own surveys, found that it contained dead, hollow trees in which the possums nest.
Malcolm Macfarlane, an ecologist with the department who devised the draft conservation strategy for Leadbeater's possum, told the May 12 Age that there had been confusion over the location of a drainage line marking the boundary of the coupe. Claiming that the implementation of the draft strategy was going well, he said that such incidents were "a rarity".
However, Anne Casey of the Victorian National Parks Association told Green Left Weekly that the department's attitude was unacceptable. "It's another example of the department not applying it's own procedures", she said. "There is a clear code of practices that, if followed, should make it impossible for these accidents to occur." She believes that the logging will decrease the possum's chances of survival.
Casey is critical of the Department of Conservation guidelines for preserving native forest. "One example is the 20-metre buffer zone around rainforest stands. This is totally inadequate and has no scientific basis. There are individuals and areas of the department that are genuinely trying to conserve the environment, but they constantly come into conflict with other areas who are pro-logging, and it seems in the end that the money wins out."