With yesterday’s announcement, we now will have stopped logging operations in Tallaganda State Forest for a total of 113 days - and counting. A third stop work order has been imposed on all logging operations in Tallaganda State Forest by the EPA until 20 December 2023.
Home to one of the largest and most important greater glider populations remaining in Australia, Tallaganda is being heavily targeted for logging. If operations continue, we will lose this stronghold population which could tip greater gliders over the brink of extinction.
Central to our success, several submissions have been made to the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) in collaboration with WWF-Australia and South East Forest Rescue, including our most recent joint report on greater glider breaches. You can read more about the role of this report in yesterday’s page three SMH article.
But much more needs to be done for greater gliders in Tallaganda and across NSW, and we need your support to do it.
Greater gliders: the wilderness guardians
The greater glider is a ‘canary in the coalmine’ for the health of wilderness forests. Their core habitat overlaps almost perfectly with old growth and undisturbed landscapes. In high numbers, their populations tell us where wilderness qualities are still present, and act as a guide to the protection of our richest and healthiest forest ecosystems and numerous other threatened species.
Yet following decades of logging and climate-induced bushfires, greater glider numbers are crashing as our undisturbed wilderness forests diminish. Just last year, the greater glider was listed as a nationally Endangered species.
By drawing on critical science, community education and advocacy, we are giving gliders and so many other species a chance to survive. We are doing the work that federal and state governments have said they will do to halt the extinction crisis - despite their failure so far to develop a comprehensive plan to protect greater gliders from logging. And we will need your help.
Our plan is to identify and protect all strongholds of greater gliders that still remain. In doing so, we will also protect the core habitat of Yellow-bellied Gliders, Sooty Owls, Powerful Owls, Spotted-tailed Quolls and many other threatened forest species. This greater glider reserve system will also increase the protection of key wilderness areas and other remote and ecologically intact forests.
One crucial way you can support this campaign is by making a donation to fund the field work, science, mapping, lobbying and submissions that we will undertake throughout the coming year.
The future of greater gliders depend on the actions we take now!