Wildlife
Australia’s native forests are home to more than half our native plants and animals. In Victoria, they provide crucial habitat for endangered wildlife, such as the Spotted-tailed Quoll, the Sooty Owl and the Leadbeater’s Possum. This tiny possum is Victoria’s faunal emblem yet fewer than 1000 remain.
VicForests’ logging is destroying this crucial habitat and fragmenting the home ranges of our native species. Climate change will only make things worse for native species that may need to move into other areas to survive. VicForests is restricting the range in which the species live and is destroying habitat of endangered species, such as Brown Mountain in East Gippsland.
The endangered species lists are getting longer in Australia. Logging is contributing to this, and VicForests does not conduct surveys to identify species that are living in the forests before they log them. It’s impossible to determine whether an endangered species lives in a forest when you don’t look for them prior to sending in the bulldozers and chainsaws.
Moving logging out of native forests and into plantations will help leave a rich legacy by securing the future of our endangered wildlife.
MYTH – VicForests claims that they ‘retain habitat trees and recruitment trees’ which are critical for many endangered species’ survival. They also claim that logging ‘has little impact on flora and fauna’.
TRUTH – VicForests has handed over the identification of habitat trees to logging contractors, rather than have expert scientists survey for endangered wildlife.
VicForests does not undertake flora and fauna surveys. Recently at Brown Mountain in East Gippsland, conservationists surveyed the forests being logged to find endangered species that VicForests did not look for in the first place.
MYTH – VicForests claims ‘It has been recognised that timber harvesting is an important management tool that can recreate the ideal habitat structure provided greater efforts are made to retain and protect old nest trees among the resultant regrowth.’
TRUTH – Logging is the dominant land use in the Central Highlands, east of Melbourne. Logging is permitted in more than 75% of the distribution of Leadbeater’s Possum habitat. The detrimental impacts of logging on the possum have been documented in a range of studies (Smith and Lindenmayer, 1988;1992. Lindenmayer 1990a., Lindenmayer 1992a; 1992b; 1994a). Risk Of Extinction, Prof. David B Lindenmayer & Prof. Hugh P Possingham.
Logging is scientifically recognised as a major extinction driver for this species.
Ten Commitments - Reshaping the Lucky Country’s Environment
- CSIRO Publication
‘I argue that a robust forest industry should not log old-growth forest, should not clear native forest and woodland to establish exotic plantations, and should not severely over-commit forest resources as has happened in parts of Victoria.’ Prof. David Lindenmayer (ANU)
“There are localised extinctions occurring due to current forestry practices and there is a significant risk of future global extinctions.”
Professor Tony Norton, formerly RMIT University.
