With an uncertain future of native logging in Queensland, a forest home to endangered greater gliders could be cut down

Australia Broadcast Center

15-05-2025

Without seeing them fly, you'd be forgiven for confusing a greater glider with a possum.
In the dark, the cat-sized marsupial uses webbing between its limbs to sail silently from gum to gum, dropping its metre long tail like a rudder just before impact.
The endangered species sleeps during the day and eats leaves at night, almost never touching the ground.
They're incredibly hard to find, without the right technique.
Three hours north of Brisbane, a group of locals have found a community of them living in the St Mary State Forest, near the Fraser Coast town of Tiaro.
At night they go spotlighting, holding huge torches at eye level to look for the glider's eye-shine in the canopy.
The reflection looks like two stars peeking through the foliage, but with binoculars the animal takes shape.
With big ears, a pink nose, tiny hands and an absurdly long and fluffy tail, gliders will stare back at you as long as the spotlight shines on them.
Found in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT, southern and central greater gliders were upgraded from vulnerable to endangered in 2022, due to a 50 per cent population drop over 21 years.
The hollows of gum trees they live in take between 150 and 300 years to develop.
Logging, clearing for agriculture and bushfires have ravaged their habitat.
Tina Raveneau, who discovered the group in the St Mary State Forest, has fallen in love.
"I can recognise their little faces and start to realise there's so many different ones [with] different colouring," she says.
But despite protections, Ms Raveneau is worried the forest these gliders call home will soon be logged.
Three things dominate the land around Tiaro — paddocks, pine plantations and state forest.
In 1999, a deal was struck between government, conservationists and the timber industry to end logging in all state forests south of Gladstone by the end of 2024 in a decision known as the South-East Queensland Forest Agreement (SEQFA).
In 2019, the Palaszczuk government redrew the area, meaning logging was only ceased in state forests south of Noosa.
The practice was allowed to continue in the Eastern Hardwoods — which includes forest around Tiaro — for "at least another two years".
Logging licenses in the Western Hardwoods, further inland, will continue through to at least 2034.
Dr Tyron Venn, an expert in forestry and a natural resource economist, says by 2019 it was clear elements of the SEQFA deal had not been met.
He says a commitment to develop long rotation plantation hardwood to replace the output from the native forest industry never got off the ground.
"Only a fraction of those plantations were established and many of those have already been cleared for other land use," Dr Venn says.
He says the government also promised support for private native forestry but did not deliver.
"As a result, in the 2020s we are producing as much timber as we were in the 1990s," he says.
"We've had no increase in timber production, but our population has grown a whopping 64 per cent."
That shortfall is made up by imported timber, often from places with less regulation, he says.
"This is bad for global climate and biodiversity conservation outcomes," he says.
Logging licenses in the Wide Bay Burnett end in 2026, but the Queensland government is yet to determine whether the practice will continue.
A statement from the Department of Primary Industries (DPI), who are responsible for logging in state forests, says the government's new plan for the use of state forests will be released later this year.
The regulations Dr Venn believes make Queensland timber sustainable, are laid out in the state's native timber production code of practice.
When it comes to greater gliders, loggers are duty bound to protect the species by leaving six "habitat trees" per hectare, as well as two "recruitment trees" for future habitat.
If there aren't enough habitat trees, more recruitment trees are left standing.
Trees that should be left behind are marked with a spray-painted H.
A DPI spokesperson says within their habitat range "timber harvesting is authorised on the basis that gliders may be present anywhere at any time".
Research scientist Dr Norman Patrick says these measures are "not good enough".
He says studies show 85 per cent of the basal area — essentially the total amount of trees — needs to remain for gliders to thrive and 20 per cent of that prime habitat is in state forests.
"Areas that are degraded will likely see localised extinctions," he says.
Nicky Moffat from the Queensland Conservation Council says after more than a century of logging, many trees that could have become gnarled and hollowed are not there anymore.
"Some of these trees with an H on it, they're actually a really young tree, and they've got no hollow," she says.
That impact can be seen on the eastern side of Tiaro in the Bauple State Forest, where locals say they have also seen greater gliders.
Large swathes of Bauple State Forest have been logged within the past year.
At one site, an area on the side of the road is cleared and covered in bark — a landing area where the harvested trees were left to dry out.
While there are habitat trees marked with yellow Hs, most of the remaining trees are young and straight. Weeds and thick undergrowth cover the ground.
Yellow Hs have started to appear on trunks in the St Mary State Forest where Tina Raveneau spotted the gliders.
"My heart sank," she says.
Dr Venn argues any short term damage for local species populations must be thought of in the grand scheme of conservation efforts globally.
"We really need to be thinking about the broad landscape level, not simply the site level at which the harvesting takes place," he says.
He says selective native logging done right can trap carbon, supply Australia with needed building supplies and create jobs.
Ms Moffat says the 1999 agreement needs to be honoured.
"A deal is a deal and we hope the Crisafulli government will honour that and protect these forests," she says.
"At the moment, signs are not great. They are rushing through a timber action plan and they are planning on getting that out in October but we haven't had any consultation so far and we're not seeing very encouraging signs.
"We're worried it's going to be a smash and grab before these licenses end."
The Crisafulli government's roundtable for the Queensland Future Timber Plan, made up of industry stakeholders, met for the first time yesterday.
"Investment security for both the plantation softwood and native forestry sectors will be critical to bolster growing, harvesting and processing activities across the supply chain," a statement read.