Gippsland Environment Group Inc
Lobbying against environmental threats on the unceded lands of the GunaiKurnai, Yaitmathang, Ngarigo and Bidwell Peoples
Rapid Fauna Assessment in the catchment of the Upper Little Dargo River
February 2021
Gippsland Environment Group, Environment East Gippsland, Friends of Bats and Habitat Gippsland, Friends of Little Dargo and Rakali Ecological Consulting jointly surveyed for Alpine Tree Frogs and other threatened species in the catchment of the Little Dargo River, scheduled for logging.
The catchment of the upper Little Dargo River supports nationally threatened species including the Alpine Tree Frog and Broad-toothed Rat and state-listed species including the Alpine Bog Skink (Pseudemoia cryodroma).
Pre-logging fauna surveys are required to ensure that the habitat of critically endangered species is not destroyed.
The impact of the construction of the logging road through the Alpine National Park also requires a thorough environmental assessment. This proposed road would traverse several rare and endangered EVCs and the habitat of several threatened species including the Alpine Tree Frog, Alpine Bog Skink and Broad-toothed Rat. Roadworks in this area could potentially introduce the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis into a catchment that currently supports a significant population of the Alpine Tree Frog, with potentially devastating effects on this critically endangered species.
On the eve of Victorian government’s introduction of draconian forest laws to prevent citizen scientists accessing scheduled logging coupes to survey for endangered species, East Gippsland environment groups were notified that their survey records of the critically endangered Alpine Tree Frog at Dargo High Plains have been verified. See story here