Exclusion zones to protect Victoria’s tiny emblem, the Leadbeater’s possum, have reduced the animal’s risk of extinction but will wipe nearly $15 million from the timber industry. Source: News.com.au
There are now 436 possum colonies protected in state forest by timber harvesting exclusion zones, according to a Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning report.
The zones have a 200-metre radius and have resulted in 34,566ha of formal reserve in the Central Highlands.
“Without this protection, many of these possum colonies may have been at risk of timber harvesting,” the report released on Tuesday reads. But despite extensive efforts, only about 6% to 10% of the possum’s potential habitat in the Central Highlands has been surveyed.
And VicForests’ contribution to the report estimates the exclusion zones will result in a loss of revenue from sawlog harvesting to 2030 of of $14.77 million.
The creation of the zones also created additional costs to building roads.
DELWP’s review of the exclusion zones was also assessed by Professor John Woinarski of Charles Darwin University.
He found while the exclusion zones had some significant short-term benefits, the process is reactive, resource-hungry and entrenched the fragmentation of protected areas.
“A more strategic and broader landscape-scale planning approach would be more likely to shape a comprehensive reserve system that could provide more adequately for the long-term conservation security and recovery of Leadbeater’s possum,” he wrote.
