Extract from ABC News
They're often described as looking a bit like a flying possum.
It's a description of the greater glider that Brendan Wintle from Melbourne University's Biosciences School agrees with.
But environmentalist Chris Schuringa has a different way of thinking about the marsupial.
"[It's] kind of like a koala in a way," she says.
"They have large fluffy ears and a massive long tail, they are really quite cute and when you see them in the forest it is really a special experience."
Traditionally they have been found in eastern Australia, all the way from Queensland down to Victoria.
These gliders live in the hollows of old trees, using their ability to glide up to 100 metres at a time to travel from tree to tree.
But increasingly, greater gliders are becoming harder to spot.
Even before the catastrophic 2019 bushfires, Professor Wintle says greater glider numbers were in steep decline.
"Throughout its range it is retracting, its numbers are declining quite significantly," he says.
"We have seen in the central highlands of Victoria, just east of Melbourne, declines of up to 80 per cent over about 10 years in surveys done in the tall forests.
Professor Wintle says a combination of bushfires, climate change and logging are threatening the existence of the greater glider.
It's why Ms Schuringa and her colleagues at the Goongerah Environment Centre (GECO) in East Gippsland were excited to find a significant number of greater gliders in forest near the Victorian and NSW border in 2018.
They
thought that forest would be protected for the gliders, but last month
were shocked to see the same area had been placed on a logging schedule.
A night time survey nets big results
It was in March that seven citizen scientists headed out at night in forest outside of Bendoc near the NSW border.
"The surveys can take six hours. You are often walking through dense bush, it is quite an effort going in there," Ms Schuringa says.
"So
when you see a greater glider in an area its eyes shine quite a bright
orange, it is very distinct and then we record with video camera and GPS
marks the location as well."
On that night, the GECO team recorded 19 greater gliders across three proposed logging coupes known as Tennis Elbow, Runners Knee and Back Hand.
The environmentalists wrote up a report and sent it to the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP).
Logging schedule reveals area's future
In June of the following year DELWP's acting manager for its harvesting compliance unit, Lachlan Clarke, responded, telling the environmentalists that their results had been verified by the department.
In this case, enough greater gliders were detected for approximately 100 hectares to be set aside as a special protection zone.
For Ms Schuringa and her team, this letter was seen as the end of the matter.
"We kind of thought case closed, they are protecting this area," she says.
It is what has happened after that 2019 letter was sent, that baffles Ms Schuringa and her team.
That schedule was published on DELWP's website but has since been removed.
Ms Schuringa says her group also learnt that DELWP had produced another report this year, with field surveys recording greater gliders in the coupes, but in smaller numbers per sighting.
Her group also learnt that the area had still not been formally rezoned to protect habitat of the greater gliders.
Government bodies provide mixed messages
DELWP told the ABC that it was in the "process of creating a zoning amendment" for the three coupes.
It also says logging cannot take place while land is being considered for a change in zoning.
How the coupes ended up on a logging schedule on DELWP's website, while it did not intend some areas to be available for logging, remains unclear.
The state-owned VicForests says it does still intend to log the coupes.
It says the three coupes are not scheduled for logging this year, with the online schedule "indicative only" and used to help DELWP with the "prioritisation of surveys".
But VicForests told the ABC it was likely logging would take place in these coupes in either 2022 or 2023.
It says a 100-hectare exclusion zone of suitable habitat for the greater gliders would need to be put in place, but this wouldn't necessarily exclude logging from these coupes.
In a statement, the state-owned logger wrote that it "takes its responsibility of sustainably harvesting couples within our state forests for today and future generations seriously".
It says it undertakes its "own separate surveys to assess coupes for the presence of threatened species" before any logging.
Lawyer critical of delays in rezoning coupes
Danya Jacobs is a lawyer at Environmental Justice Australia, and says it is quite simple for DELWP to rezone land.
She says this should not be a lengthy process.
"It should take no longer than a few months," she explains.
The environmental lawyer says DELWP should not take two years to put a protection in place after it has verified the presence of a threatened species.
She is one of many, now waiting to see what happens next to this remote forest and the greater gliders that live in its treetops.
No comments:
Post a Comment