PROTECTING ENDANGERED GREATER GLIDERS IN TALLAGANDA

Working with Wilderness Australia and South East Forest Rescue, we protected the Endangered greater glider by keeping logging out of Tallaganda State Forest.

Forestry Corporation of NSW’s logging operations commenced in August 2023, close to a site in Tallaganda National Park where WWF-Australia has been working with partners in the aftermath of the devastating 2019-20 bushfires to help glider numbers bounce back by installing hi-tech nest boxes nearby, providing them shelter while their forest homes recover.

Alongside our partners, we began a campaign, writing to the NSW Government’s Forestry Corporation and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and calling for an immediate cease to the devastating logging. In addition, thousands of supporters took action, calling on state and federal politicians to intervene. This outcry sparked an investigation by the EPA - who tragically discovered a deceased glider less than 50 metres from the logging site when they arrived. This led to the issuing of an initial Stop Work Order to the Forestry Corporation of NSW for 40 days.

In September, donations helped to send WWF’s Dr Kita Ashman to survey near the site with our partners and discovered 17 den trees in less than four hours.

Forestry Corporation of NSW had only identified one.

After this discovery, the Stop Work Order was extended until 13 November.

This was followed by the release of a report with our partners in November that estimated Forestry Corporation NSW may have breached regulations more than 1,200 times in Tallaganda. The Stop Work Order was again extended, this time to 20 December.

Then in late January 2024, Forestry Corporation NSW pulled out of the logging compartments subject to the Stop Work Order. As a result, over 1,500 ha have avoided logging in the Tallaganda State Forest.

After this, WWF maintained pressure on the EPA to help strengthen the updated greater glider survey protocols for Forestry Corporation NSW. In late May, the EPA came out with the latest revision of these guidelines, on which WWF and other eNGOs called for further improvements. WWF’s advocacy has helped push Forestry Corporation NSW to agree to put 25 metre-logging buffers around greater glider sightings - not just den trees - and the EPA have advised they are open to considering WWF recommendations to expand these buffers and allow NGOs to also report sightings. Over the past 12 months, our survey work over many cold nights identified 111 greater glider den trees. All of these are afforded a permanent 50-metre logging exclusion zone. We found more den trees in Tallaganda than Forestry Corporation has found across the entire state. This equates to the permanent protection of ~86 hectares, and the safeguarding of many gliders and other animals that share this forest.

Not only has our work led to the cessation of active operations in Tallaganda, but also in areas that were earmarked for logging where, as a result, Forestry Corporation have been unable to start work.

Through this campaign, our collective action to save the gliders captured the attention of people across Australia, with over 700 editorial mentions in the media raising awareness of the campaign and over 30,000 petition signatures to politicians calling for the end of native forest logging.