Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L00270:body:0:p57
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L00270
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 156877–159932

habitat that is currently suitable, and habitat that will become suitable in the future. Retention of habitat should largely be through an increase in the dedicated reserve system to improve that system's adequacy, supported by complementary actions across other tenures. A whole of landscape management planning approach is needed to identify, protect and effectively manage habitat as well as mitigating landscape and other threats, including capacity to respond to emergency events such as severe extensive fire.
Balancing appropriate levels of fire management and on-ground actions will be complex and require detailed planning. On-ground activities will need to both suppress some aspects of fire and promote others. Desirable landscape-scale fire patterns will be necessary to mitigate the threat from inappropriate fire regimes and increased intensity, extent and frequency of bushfires under climate change scenarios. A suite of coincident actions will also be necessary that most closely resemble 'natural' fire disturbance in montane ash forest and enhance habitat suitability for Leadbeater's possum. Achieving optimal landscape-scale outcomes, including those for this species, will likely require the application of fire and other fire management interventions within areas of potential habitat (for example, refugia protection and maintenance as well as maintenance of key populations). 'Fire regimes that support healthy and resilient ecosystems and nature conservation' is an aim of 'Victoria's bushfire management strategy' draft (DEECA 2023).
This objective relates to the nub of the conservation challenge for Leadbeater's possum: in a highly dynamic landscape and with some substantial uncertainties, how to define, retain and manage sufficient areas of suitable habitat over periods of many decades to provide for the conservation security for the species. The approach adopted here to address this problem is to maintain or enhance existing protective mechanisms, and to complement it with the implementation of a dynamic land-use planning exercise that pivots explicitly on the requirement that sufficient habitat is retained and managed to provide a high level (99%) of confidence that the species will persist in nature over at least a 100 year period.
Actions under Objective 1, and the timing of those, will be crucial in informing actions under this objective, as the Recovery Plan informs, or is informed by the subsequent planning and policy decisions in response to the Victorian Government's decision to end native timber logging on public land from 1 January 2024.
Note that, except where stipulated otherwise, all actions contributing to this objective relate to the Central Highlands.

Action 2.1 – Priority: Urgent
Ensure that predicted 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