Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L00270:body:0:p58
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L00270
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 159650–162700

impacts from climate change on Leadbeater's possum and habitat are assessed and ameliorated to the extent possible. Continue to use and update dynamic modelling for fine scale detection of particular critical habitat features, especially availability of tree hollows, and likelihood of tree death. Conduct these actions under several climate change scenarios and timescales (for example, 5, 10, 20+ years) for better forecasting ability.

Action 2.2 – Priority: Urgent
Ensure that modelling under Action 2.1 is used to inform and adaptively update planning for all relevant in situ and ex situ management responses (see Action 1.1 and Action 1.2). Outcomes of modelling should inform delineation of suitable habitat under a variety of climate change scenarios for possible future emergency translocations (for example, in the event of bushfires) or protection and management of climate refugia. Work with DEECA to refine on-ground fire management activities to maximise the positive benefits for this species while ensuring community safety.

Action 2.3 – Priority: Urgent
Continue to refine and update occupancy and other relevant distributional and population viability modelling, in all land tenures across the full range of the species, with the aim of providing maximum protection of habitat critical, and responding to a dynamic environment and climate. Such refinements should incorporate new distributional data and finer-scale mapping of key habitat attributes, such as large hollow-bearing trees and midstorey density (see Objective 4 and Objective 5), and should consider future changes in habitat availability and population size across a range of plausible future disturbance episodes.
This is the foundation for a proactive land-use (conservation) planning process at a landscape scale. It will require (1) consolidating, verifying and refining spatial habitat models across the full range of the species (including the recent developments of forest mapping through LiDAR imagery (Baker et al. 2017), (2) incorporating new information arising from the recent and ongoing substantial survey effort; (3) future changes in habitat suitability as described by forest growth models under development by the University of Melbourne (Baker et al. 2017); and (4) testing these refined models through additional structured surveys across all land tenures.
Following refinement (and testing) of these distributional models, they then need to be linked to updated population viability and other dynamic modelling, to project, predict and map the distributional extent of suitable habitat and possum occurrence and population size under a range of disturbance regimes over at least a 100-year period.

Action 2.4 – Priority: Urgent
Based on models developed in Action 2.3, undertake landscape scale land-use planning that aims to provide maximum protection of habitat critical, and responds to a dynamic environment and climate, providing options for conservation of suitable habitat now and in the future to ensure an acceptably high likelihood of