Help us save Leadbeater’s Possum

Please Act this Threatened Species Day … 7th September 2009


Help us save Leadbeater’s Possum - their future is in your hands

Decades of logging in native forests, the devastating impacts of the 2009 bushfires and the massive levels of Salvage Logging taking place post-fires are tipping our State Faunal Emblem over the edge towards extinction!


Leadbeater’s Possum (LBP) Quick Facts:
§ Approx 43% of the LBP Permanent Reserve System (30,000ha) was burnt in the 2009 fires.

§ It is estimated remaining populations are around just 1,000 individuals in the wild.

§ There are no LBPs in captivity in Australia, and there is no captive breeding program planned to help increase their population.

§ Massive scale salvage logging and new timber harvesting coupes in areas of un-burnt water catchments are compounding the effects of the bushfires by removing all LBP habitat elements for the next few hundred years!

§ Without salvage logging and intensive fire reduction burning plans, our forests would regenerate and provide LBP habitat in the near future. Once they are logged or repeatedly burnt, their habitat will never recover.

§ Fuel reduction burning has a very negative effect on our wet forests including: drying out of the forests making them more flammable, destroying the seed banks that allows the diversity of species in our forests to regenerate naturally, changing the species composition (selecting for species that regenerate quickly after fire resulting in higher fuel loads in future), encouraging weed invasion, and most importantly… it destroys mature stag trees that provide essential nesting sites for the majority of our forest mammals, including LBPs, and take over 200 years to develop.

What can you do to help LBPs this Threatened Species Day???

On September 7th please make the effort to contact Premier Brumby and let him know you are not happy with the way his government is treating our forests and that you want more to be done to protect these forests for threatened species like Leadbeater’s Possum.

§ Demand a full scale review of our forest estate – before any more logging coupes or salvage logging coupes are approved. We need to ensure our State Government is managing our forests for threatened species, biodiversity & ecological values, carbon storage, water catchments and air quality – for all Australians, not just those benefitting from our destructive timber harvesting industry.

§ Demand an end to all logging in water catchments. Water scarcity is an increasingly alarming issue, rather than building destructive pipelines and energy intensive desalination plants, Victoria should be protecting the water catchments that have provided us with some of the best drinking water in the world!

§ Demand more resources be spent on threatened species management, including broad scale monitoring programs, habitat enhancement measures & community engagement.

To Contact Premier John Brumby:
www.premier.vic.gov.au, Twitter: ‘vicpremier’
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JohnBrumbyMP