200 Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities
montane ash ecosystems has provided essential ecological context for
understanding the reasons for the decline of Leadbeater’s possum and ways to
arrest that decline (Lindenmayer et al. 2013a) (if respective state and federal
governments can develop the political will to tackle the problem). However, efforts
to broaden the scope of any threatened species monitoring programs must be
undertaken carefully to ensure that fundamental work on the target species of
interest is not diluted or lost.
The maintenance of long-term research and monitoring programs is a major
challenge worldwide (Lindenmayer et al. 2012). The iconic status of Leadbeater’s
possum, and its habitat, coupled with the array of detrimental impacts of industrial
logging operations on the species are some of the reasons why the program has
persisted. Broadening the research program to encompass many different aspects
of the ecology and management of montane ash forests has also probably
contributed to this persistence. In turn, the program’s longevity has enabled new
questions to be posed and new research projects to be funded. In addition,
developing and recognising the benefits of monitoring beyond ecological research,
including for environmental education, policy and management of natural
resources, has contributed to the durability of the monitoring program.
Although the long-term monitoring program for Leadbeater’s possum has
resulted in a large number of scientific publications (220) and eight books, it has
been far from successful with respect to positive conservation outcomes for the
species. Leadbeater’s possum has experienced an ongoing decline since the
commencement of the monitoring program despite burgeoning knowledge of key
threats and what to do about them. As a consequence, the conservation status of
Leadbeater’s possum was upgraded in 2015 to Critically Endangered under the
Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and, as discussed
earlier, the mountain ash ecosystem in which it lives has been classified as
Critically Endangered under the IUCN criteria. Only when Leadbeater’s possum
and mountain ash forests are properly conserved will the potential value of the
long-term monitoring program be fully realised.
Scientific productivity, as an outcome of the long-term monitoring program for
Leadbeater’s possum, has not always been popular with forest industry lobbyists,
pro-forestry government officials, bodies representing some professional foresters,
pro-forestry scientists, some politicians and even those with purported
conservation interests. This is because the monitoring work has identified
industrial clearfelling as a major threat to both Leadbeater’s possum and to the
integrity of the montane ash forest ecosystem. Indeed, for more than two decades,
the results from research on Leadbeater’s possum have triggered a constant stream
of hate snail mail, threatening emails and phone calls, as well as various other
forms of harassment. The salutary lesson from this is that persistence of long-term
monitoring of a threatened species requires that the champion of the work also
maintains the ability to deal with ongoing threats and abuse.