Queensland residents draws to the attention of the House the not fit for purpose ‘Code of practice for native forest timber production on Queensland’s State forest estate’ (the Code), the ineffective Glider Protection Measures and the ecologically reckless proposal to continue logging Greater Glider habitat in Queensland beyond 2024 under the previous intensive use scenario of a 40cm+ diameter at breast height (DBH) cut limit.

Whilst the Glider Protection Measures prescribe the retention of 80cm+ DBH and 100cm+ DBH trees in dry and wet sclerophyll forest respectively there is a paucity or absence of trees in these size classes at the landscape scale in our State forest estate and forest consent areas due to historical exploitation and more recent intensive 40cm+DBH logging. And despite this logging operations may still be undertaken at the lowest permissible threshold of compliance where these larger trees and hollow bearing trees are underrepresented or absent as is prescribed by Table 6.3.2a of the Code.

The Code and the 40cm+ DBH cut limit by default undermine any implied benefit the Glider Protection Measures may contribute to remedying the existing long term temporal deficit of tree hollow resources. These avaricious practices fail to adequately support viable genetically diverse metapopulations of hollow obligate native species to sufficiently safeguard them from the multiple compounding threats that contribute to their local extinction.

Your petitioners, therefore, request the House to bring this matter to the attention of the Minister for the Environment.