Once upon a time Indigenous people regularly set fire to the bush and forest. Amongst other things this helped prevent major bushfires. In modern times forestry activities have provided firebreaks that serve the same purpose.

With increasing restrictions on logging what is inevitable is a major bushfire that will destroy much of the forests (possums included!).

I recently drove through the bushfire devastated state forests of northern Victoria.

The place was like a moonscape. It would be a safe bet that all mammal life for miles around was totally devastated, extinct, gone-to-join-the-choir-invisi-ble. This was not the kind of high-frequency low-temperature burn that the traditional Aborigines used. This is the kind of low-frequency high temperature scorched earth policy of the Greens. The author doesn't seem to have factored into his theory the risk to native wildlife from their habitat being put in the care of the State. Nor has he considered the cost to human welfare if all other values are forcibly sacrificed for the sake of the Leadbeaters possum. Yet no doubt people do value the Leadbeaters possum.

The solution is for the author, and everyone who agrees with him, to buy the habitat for all the Leadbeaters possums they want. That way they'll have miles of forest, running Leadbeaters possums, at a huge loss paid for by those who want to produce Leadbeaters possumes, which is the measure of the high non-monetary value they place - or say they place - on the Leadbeaters possum, which of course is how it should be.

Why aren't you doing that, Steve?

Lets indeed not mince words ..... the main game here is, and has always been, the total closure of Victoria's (and indeed Australia's) native hardwood industry. The presence of LBP in a small proportion of those Victorian State Forests where timber production is still permitted is simply a convenient lever to help achieve this.

Australia's forests are managed on a multiple use philosophy that manifests a balance between conservation and use. In Australia and Victoria, the balance is already overwhelmingly weighted towards conservation.

This is true even within the mountain ash forest type favoured by LBP in Victoria's Central Highland's region. Around 65 - 70% is already in parks, reserves and closed water catchments where timber harvesting has been excluded for up to 100+ years in many cases.

In addition, the areas of this forest type being used for timber are mostly only 75-years old and structurally unsuitable for the possum. Amongst this there are small patches of suitable older forest, but they are identified as LBP habitat and reserved prior to logging.

Accordingly, closing down the timber industry will provide virtually no immediate benefit to LBP.

LBP's habitat requirements are not static, and so its population varies in accordance with fire which both destroys current habitat but creates the conditions required for future habitat. The 2009 Black Saturday fires burnt 43% of the LBP habitat, mostly in the parks and reserves system, but this will mostly regenerate to be ideal LBP habitat in 10 - 15 years irrespective of whether we still have a timber industry.

Agree with Ben.
Native peoples have been selectively logging their forests for millennium, without harm to either flora or fauna!
In fact, the only real results were and remain beneficial, as improved habitat, and food resources, for all who share in a forests bounty.
We have one glaring example where the blah, blah, blah, green movement, successfully locked up thousands of hectares of Victorian forest!
Took the grazers out of the summer high country, and loggers out of all of it!
The end result?
Massive fuel build up and millions of acres, burnt to the ground in a truly massive, impossible to stop wild fire, that thundered across the tops, with the speed of a roaring express train!
And consumed all within its huge boundary; including hundreds or even thousands of the endangered Leadbeater's Possums!
Not only that, but more harm has ensued since, as feral plants have taken over places impossible to reverse or actually control!
And then they have the unmitigated Gaul to try and instruct the overwhelming majority, how to behave in or use our forests!
Enough overly assertive, blah, blah, already!
Rhrosty.

I will have to agree with TA , as described in Para 1 , as correct on this topic

Do grow up Steve. If we don't go back to using this country to generate some wealth, & something to live on, we will be back to eating your possums, not preserving them.