Glenbog State Forest: A biodiversity stronghold under threat

Five hours south of Sydney, in the high country of south-east New South Wales, Glenbog State Forest sits quietly on the edge of the escarpment. At first glance, it looks like many other native forests. 

But Glenbog is not just any forest. It is one of the few remaining high-elevation “cloud forests” in southern NSW. These are places where geography creates its own cool, damp conditions through fog and rainfall patterns that are less dependent on broader weather systems. Even when surrounding landscapes heat up and dry out, forests like Glenbog can remain stable. 

In a warming climate, that stability matters. As droughts, heatwaves and intense fires become more frequent, places like Glenbog act as refuges. They offer wildlife a buffer when other habitats become too harsh to survive in. 

Despite this, Forestry Corporation is currently logging parts of Glenbog State Forest, including areas that provide critical habitat for some of the state’s most vulnerable wildlife. 

 

A stronghold for large gliders 

The forest supports both the Endangered greater glider and the Vulnerable yellow-bellied glider. 

These remarkable nocturnal mammals depend on old hollow-bearing trees for shelter. They cannot simply move into young regrowth. Hollows take well over a century to form. Once those trees are gone, they are gone for generations. 

Glenbog may be the only remaining place in southern NSW where greater gliders and yellow-bellied gliders still occur together in high densities with stable populations. Logging in the heart of that habitat risks long-term and potentially irreversible consequences for these species in New South Wales. 

Over the past year, citizen scientists have surveyed the areas scheduled for logging. They have recorded: 

• 112 greater glider den trees 

• A yellow-bellied glider den tree and multiple feeding trees 

• Extensive glider activity throughout the proposed logging area 

Each of those den trees represents a home. When dozens of these homes sit within a single logging boundary, it raises a simple question: is this really an appropriate place for industrial harvesting? 

 

A forest rich in threatened birds and wombats 

Glenbog is home to extraordinary numbers of bare-nosed wombats. Surveys have recorded around 800 wombat burrows in the areas scheduled for logging. These are not scattered or isolated burrows. They form dense networks across the landscape. 

Wombat burrows are complex tunnel systems that can be used for generations. When heavy machinery moves through forest, burrows can collapse. In previous operations in Glenbog, burrow collapse has resulted in wombats being injured or killed. In a forest where hundreds of burrows are present, the risk of harm is not incidental. It is foreseeable. 

Glenbog is also important for birds. Citizen surveys have documented breeding activity of flame robins, sightings and calls of the Endangered gang-gang cockatoo, and records of powerful and sooty owls. 

These are species already facing pressure from habitat loss across the state. When they are nesting, feeding and raising young in significant numbers within a proposed logging area, it tells us something important about the value of this forest. 

 

When the numbers tell a bigger story 

Across gliders, birds and wombats, at least 775 formal and informal exclusion-triggering records have been identified within the scheduled logging areas.  

Exclusion zones are meant to protect isolated habitat features within production forests. But when hundreds of threatened species records occur within one operation boundary, it suggests something more fundamental. 

Glenbog is not low-conflict habitat. It is a biodiversity stronghold. It is also a rare climate refuge in a warming state.  

These are not the characteristics of a forest suited to industrial timber extraction. 

 

Why this matters 

You do not need to live near Glenbog to care about what happens there. 

Forests like this store carbon, filter water and help landscapes cope with a changing climate. They hold species that cannot simply relocate when habitat is lost. 

Old forest cannot be replaced on a short timeline. The tree hollows gliders rely on take generations to form. The stability that makes Glenbog a climate refuge cannot be recreated once it is removed. 

Preventing further activity by Forestry Corporation in Glenbog recognises that this place is simply too important to log. 

Once a forest like Glenbog is cut, it cannot simply be put back. 

 

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Media Contacts:
Dr Renae Charalambous, Program Manager, Wildlife at Humane World for Animals Australia 
T: 0410 366 900
E: rcharalambous@humaneworld.org