Status
Endangered and with a restricted range, logging continues to pose a critical threat to Leadbeater's possum. The logging in 1993 of "much of the possum's habitat, known as zone one" a five hectare reserve east of Powelltown, followed a "mapping error." Author, Peter Preuss, stated that the possum's population faltered in 1997 with current habitat (limited to a 50-square-kilometre area) under threat from logging. He emphasised the need to relaunch a breeding program.
Dr. David Lindenmeyer (Australian National University) has argued that the need for nest boxes indicates that logging practices are not ecologically sustainable for conserving hollow-dependent species like Leadbeater's possum. Studies have shown that clear-felling operations, such as the logging run in state forest between the Yarra Ranges National Park and Mount Bullfight Conservation Reserve in February 2006, lead to the deaths of most possums in the area - "Adult animals have a strong affinity with their home range and are reluctant to move".
Despite a joint Federal and State government plan to save it, since the 1980s, the Leadbeater's possum population halved to around 2000 even before the Black Saturday fires. Many more were killed early in 2007 when Government Backed Enterprise company, VicForests bulldozed large firebreaks through Leadbeater's monitoring stations following the Christmas fires - firebreaks and clear-felling also prevent breeding with nearby colonies.
Salvage logging since the fires has posed a further risk to this extremely diminished population with clear-felling also approved by VicForests in the few remaining unburnt areas, such as the Kalatha Creek area of Toolangi in 2010, a move opposed by the Yarra Ranges Shire Council. Currently, MyEnvironment Inc. is challenging VicForests in the Supreme Court, the basis of their claim being that "VicForests did not undertake adequate pre-logging surveys prior to logging in an area that we claim meets Leadbeater’s habitat and therefore should not have been logged." The proposed logging is to supply (taxpayer subsidised) pulp to 'Reflex' a subsidiary of the Nippon Paper Group. During the case, film has been taken of a Leadbeater's possum in this area.
The Baillieu State government has proposed changes to allow loggers to ignore existing protected species legislation in future, virtually signing the death warrant of the Leadbeater's possum (this follows the success of other recent cases preventing logging of remaining possum habitat). These variations to the Code of Practice for Timber Production 2007 allow the Secretary of the Department of Sustainability and Environment to exempt logging operations from the requirements of a Flora and Fauna Guarantee Action Statement.
With its known habitat destroyed in the disastrous bushfires of February 2009 - large areas of forest around Marysville, Narbethong and Healesville - the species status is currently in doubt. The mapped distribution of the Leadbeater's possum was within the area burnt by the fires. Since the fires, the surviving population outside the central highlands has been estimated at fewer than 100 by Melbourne Zoo threatened species biologist Dr. Dan Harley, with the entire distribution confined to a 70 by 80 kilometre area.
The Friends of Leadbeater's Possum group has been active in raising the animal's profile and lobbying for its conservation.
Read more about this topic: Leadbeater's Possum
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