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Difficulties in fitting an adaptive

management approach to threatened

species monitoring

David B. Lindenmayer

Summary

This chapter describes an adaptive management (AM) experiment from the
mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans) forests of the Central Highlands of Victoria,
established to assess the conservation benefits of different logging systems. It
highlights some of the challenges of managing/monitoring threatened species,
including the legislative constraints of working with rare species, and the extra
logistic, cost and political considerations, and suggests some solutions to these
challenges. One of the initial motivations for the experiment was to promote the
development of habitat for the Critically Endangered Leadbeater’s possum
Gymnobelideus leadbeateri. However, it quickly became clear that prescriptions
under legislated codes of logging practices, which prevented the harvesting of
potential habitat for the species, precluded the possum (and other threatened
arboreal marsupials) being included in the experiment. The experiment