Alarm at plans to log Greater Glider Forest Park and conduct secret talks over QLD timber

Queensland Conservation Council Protected Areas campaigner Nicky Moffat said

Logging in this part of Queensland should have ended in 2024 if the 25-year agreement between State Government, timber and conservation sectors in 1999 was honoured.

It’s clear that when it comes to the future of State Forests in the Maryborough region, nature is being left on the chopping block.

Instead of logging slowing down in the habitat of the beautiful greater glider, it’s ramping up. Using satellite imagery on Watch on Nature, the Wilderness Society, we identified sites logged in greater glider habitat at Bauple State Forest between May and December 2024.

A deal is a deal, we want the Crisafulli Government to honour it and protect these forests forever, not endorse a final smash and grab from invaluable endangered species habitats.

The forestry minister won’t even include nature when he decides his rushed plan for the sector, which he’s promised to deliver by October this year.

The former State Government led by Labor’s Steven Miles announced in August 2024 a large part of St Mary State Forest would be protected as part of its Greater Glider Forest Park.

We were elated at the time – finally someone cared about the gliders.

It’s devastating to have come so close to protecting this amazing showcase of natural wonder for our kids and theirs, only to have the Crisafulli Government mark it up ready for logging a few months later.

These are public forests. It is a disgrace that so little care is being taken to ensure their biodiversity values persist.

We are unsure whether those rangers and forestry officers managing St Mary State Forest are aware of its conservation significance or the presence of this species.

We have alerted the relevant ministers in a letter last month but have so far not heard back.

Thankfully logging has not yet begun and we hope there is time to save this irreplaceable habitat.

Citizen scientists and conservation groups are calling on the Crisafulli Government to immediately halt plans to log the forest near Maryborough and Tiaro, and to commit to ending logging in the Eastern Hardwoods native forestry region.

St Mary resident Tina Raveneau and fellow naturalists regularly conduct surveys along a road through St Mary State Forest 1, where they often find and photograph more than 10 Southern Greater Gliders (Petauroides volans). The high density population has been documented over more than 12 months, and most recently spotted on 19 May 2025.

I’m dismayed because recently there’s been paint sprayed on the trees with symbols like the forestry department uses when it is marking out an area before logging.

We have seen greater gliders on those very trees. They can’t ethically take those trees, or disturb this forest without damaging the feed trees and dens of an extremely vulnerable animal which we may soon lose altogether.

Photos: Greater gliders in St Mary State Forest 1 and adjoining road reserve, taken by Suzanne Pearson in April 2025

Wide Bay Burnett Environment Council (WBBEC) coordinator Jennifer Waithman is leading a push to have the biodiversity values of the native forests in her region documented and considered as part of the Queensland Government’s Timber Action Plan, due for release in October, now without the input of conservation groups.

I would love to see this area protected permanently, and wildlife tourism take off here.

The native forests in our region are magical, and I think visitors would love to experience these incredible nocturnal creatures for themselves. They are worth so much more than the price of timber, and it’s devastating to think that is the only financial value the Queensland Government is recognising when it plans the future of these forests.

Timber is a very important commodity, but you have to realise the habitat is invaluable too. It takes eucalypts more than 100 years to start forming hollows that animals like the greater glider depend on. But trees are being taken before they get a chance to mature. It is simply not sustainable.

Groups write to Ministers

QCC and WBBEC have written to the Minister for Primary Industries, Anthony Perrett, and Minister for Environment, Andrew Powell (PDF 336k), alerting them to the presence of the endangered species, which has few officially recorded sightings nearby.

The letter states:

We understand from conversations with sustainability, ecology and forestry policy staff in your department that the Queensland Government has never referred its native forestry harvest operations to the federal environment minister for assessment under the EPBC Act, even though the presence of P.volans and its well documented vulnerabilities to timber harvesting were known.

We believe this was a mistake and would urge you to rectify.