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been listed as threatened under Victoria's FFG Act or the Commonwealth EPBC Act and are potentially impacted by forestry operations across Victoria's five RFA regions. This became a new requirement in the modernised RFAs. Leadbeater's possum was assessed in March 2020 in Tranche 1, see Threatened Species and Communities Risk Assessment on DEECA's website.
In November 2019, the Victorian Government announced its decision to phase out all timber harvesting in native forests and transition Victoria's timber industry fully to plantations by 30 June 2030. Under the Victorian Forestry Plan, harvest levels in State forests were to be progressively stepped down over the next 10 years.
In May 2023, the Victorian Government announced the early cessation of native forest timber harvesting by January 1, 2024, Delivering Certainty For Timber Workers. This was in response to timber supply constraints arising from increasingly severe bushfires, prolonged legal action and court decisions.

    6 Conservation and management history
Leadbeater's possum has been the subject of much conservation management activity extending for more than three decades. Initially, much of this activity was framed by the previous Recovery Plan (Macfarlane et al. 1997) and overseen by a Leadbeater's possum recovery team. That conservation effort built a substantial legacy and foundation for current conservation activity. Available on the Commonwealth Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water's (DCCEEW) website, the Review of the 1997 Recovery Plan for Leadbeater's Possum summarised that research and management effort, and the extent to which each action was implemented.
In June 2013, the Victorian Government focused a major conservation management effort through the establishment of the Leadbeater's Possum Advisory Group (LPAG). LPAG was established to provide recommendations aimed at 'supporting the recovery of the possum while maintaining a sustainable timber industry' in the Central Highlands. LPAG recommended a package of actions to slow the projected decline in population in the Central Highlands, by: providing protection to known colonies; protecting current high quality habitat; expanding future old-growth forest and possum habitat; proactively increasing the availability of nest sites at selected locations (via nest boxes and artificial hollows), and; improving knowledge to more effectively implement management actions (LPAG 2014a). LPAG only examined management options for highland Leadbeater's possum populations given the overlap with timber harvesting.
In April 2014, the Victorian Government accepted all 13 recommendations and announced that it would invest $11 million to implement these over the following five years. The LPAG recommendations were incorporated into a revised Victorian Action Statement in 2014 which outlined the conservation measures in place for Leadbeater's possum (Department of Environment and Primary Industries 2014a). Further measures were introduced in 2015, including: (1) accelerating the LPAG targeted survey program to more quickly locate and protect Leadbeater's possum colonies,