The state-owned New South Wales forestry agency has been ordered to immediately stop logging in parts of a state forest after the Environment Protection Authority found a dead greater glider - an endangered species - nearby.
Conservation groups had written to the state government and EPA to investigate Forestry Corporation logging in the Tallaganda state forest, east of Canberra, as it was one of the last known strongholds of the southern greater glider.
The EPA said it inspected several active logging areas in the forest on Tuesday after receiving a complaint and found a dead glider about 50m from where Forestry Corporation was working.
The greater glider is Australia's largest gliding marsupial, with bodies up to 45cm long and furry, prehensile tails that extend another 60cm. It was listed as endangered in 2022 after losing significant parts of its habitat to bushfire, drought, land-clearing and logging.
Bob Debus, the chair of the group Wilderness Australia and a former Labor state environment minister, said the group had "long been concerned at the apparent efforts of the Forestry Corporation to undermine environmental policy in NSW"."As a publicly owned body, the Forestry Corporation should be attempting to miminise environmental damage during logging operations.
Forestry Corporation said protecting greater glider habitat was crucial, and it had "spent many months preparing for these operations through intensive pre-harvest surveys to identify and map sensitive habitat and ecological features".
"We are fully committed to investigating what has occurred and finding out what the circumstances are around the greater glider found dead in the forest," a spokesperson said.