198 Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities
in essence, an arm of industry have also thwarted progress of conservation of
Leadbeater’s possum (see Anon 2012). Indeed, in some cases, key prescriptions
have been watered down to facilitate more (not less) destructive logging practices
(Lindenmayer and Possingham 2013). An alternative approach, based on the
integration of environmental and economic accounts, was developed in an attempt
to better exercise the minds of policy makers and politicians whose psyche is
underpinned by a so-called economically rational ideology (Denhardt and
Denhardt 2000). The environmental and economic accounting framework was
constructed using data on the economic values of water, timber, carbon, tourism
and agriculture in the Central Highlands region (Keith et al. 2016). Data from the
long-term monitoring program for Leadbeater’s possum were used to derive a
biodiversity account that was appended to the economic and environmental
accounts. The environmental and economic accounting work showed that the
value of water was 72 times greater on a per hectare per year basis than timber. The
corresponding values for tourism and agriculture were 12 times and 100 times
greater than for timber (Keith et al. 2016). The biodiversity accounts showed that
the number of threatened species in the Central Highlands region has increased
substantially in the past decade (Keith et al. 2016), ref lecting the ongoing
degradation of the forest estate associated with major wildfires and widespread
industrial clearfelling (Department of the Environment and Energy 2015).
Testing the potential for ecologically sustainable forest management
The conservation of Leadbeater’s possum has long been recognised as a test case of
ecologically sustainable forest management (Warneke 1968; Lindenmayer et al.
1990; Lindenmayer 1996; Lindenmayer et al. 2015a). The ability of forest managers
to maintain viable populations of species in the long term while also maintaining
wood pulp and timber production ref lects whether the logging industry is, or is
not, ecologically sustainable. Data from the long-term monitoring program for
Leadbeater’s possum, the recent uplisting to Critically Endangered (Department of
the Environment and Energy 2015), the rapid loss of large old hollow-bearing trees
(Lindenmayer et al. 2016), and the IUCN assessment of the mountain ash forest
ecosystem as Critically Endangered (Burns et al. 2015), all overwhelmingly suggest
that current logging operations are not ecologically sustainable.
Community engagement
The long-term monitoring program for Leadbeater’s possum has entailed
significant community engagement. More than 15 000 volunteers have participated
in stag-watch surveys for the species and this engagement has significant benefits
for environmental education (Lindenmayer et al. 1991). The monitoring program
also led to the development of strong links between scientists and numerous
volunteer groups (such as Friends of Leadbeater’s possum and Earthwatch) in