Workers without income as Supreme Court rules possum protection more pressing than timber harvest

Supreme Court Justice Richards says the risk of harming Greater Glider possums “outweighs” disrupting the timber industry.

Splinter group: The 37 volunteers of Kinglake Friends of The Forest and Environment East Gippsland groups have brought timber workers to their knees.

Timber harvesting is grinding to a halt across Victoria’s Central Highlands and East Gippsland, after Supreme Court Justice Melinda Jane Richards slapped injunctions on any coupe where Greater Glider possums have been spotted.

The decision comes at a time when timber workers have faced repeated disruptions from protesters invading logging coupes in what has become widely known as “green lawfare” cases brought against VicForests to halt harvesting.

In last week’s case brought by King Lake Friends of the Forest and Environment East Gippsland against VicForests, Justice Richards granted injunctions on the basis “there is cogent evidence that logging poses an existential threat to the greater glider as a species”.

She stated the injunctions apply to “coupes where there has been a sighting of a greater glider known to the defendant in, or within 240 metres of the coupe”.

Australia’s charity register shows Kinglake Friends of The Forest and Environment East Gippsland have a total of 37 volunteers.

Justice Richards decision forced 10 harvest and haulage crews to immediately stop work last week, while VicForests told The Weekly Times it would struggle to find alternate coupes for most of the other 18 crews it is contracted to supply in the New Year.

Harvest and haulage contractor Brett Robin said the majority of teams would be locked out of work.

“The court system should be serving the people, not possums,” Mr Robin said.

At this stage no trial date has been set, leaving contractors, timber mills and Victoria’s timber supply chain in limbo.

In weighing up her options Justice Richards stated “the risk of permanent and irreversible harm to greater gliders, a threatened species, outweighs the cost and disruption that is likely to result from the injunctions” to the timber industry.

In granting the injunctions Justice Richards relied heavily on the evidence of Curtin University Adjunct Associate Professor Grant Wardell-Johnson, who told the court large-scale logging had caused the Greater Glider population to fall by almost 80 per cent in some areas, and over half of the forest set aside for glider protection burned in the Black Summer fires.

VicForests will struggle to prove that logging is not a major threat to the Greater Glider, given the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning has failed to undertake any major study of the possum population.

To date the only extensive study was conducted in the Strathbogie Ranges by the Arthur Rylah Institute in 2018, which estimated there were 69,000 Greater Gliders in the region.

The research highlighted that raw spotlight counts used in other surveys “may greatly underestimate (Glider) densities”.