A field day will be held for squirrel glider conservation on October 19 in Locksley.
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Trust for Nature’s Bertram Lobert said the Longwood Plains’ original vegetation had been substantially fragmented as a result of almost 200 years of clearing and farming.
"The gliders depend on old trees which have hollows in them and on connections like treed roadsides across the landscape,” he said.
Trust for Nature is a not-for-profit conservation organisation dedicated to protecting habitat on private land.
The gliders survive on patches on vegetation on private property and are difficult to detect due to their fur colour and lack of night-time bright eye-shine.
Trust for Nature has detected squirrel gliders on three Longwood Plains properties with the use of thermal imaging.
"Fortunately there’s been good interest from local landholders who want to provide homes for gliders so we’re working with them to improve and build habitat,” Mr Lobert said.
The squirrel gliders were found on properties that have conservation covenants.
Conservation covenants are voluntary agreements on property titles that enable private landowners to protect nature forever, even after the property changes hands.
“The work that these landholders are doing is great and it's efforts like theirs that could very well ensure that we don’t lose squirrel gliders from this area,” Mr Lobert said.
Local landholder Paul Dettmann has spent the past three years improving his 60ha property for the benefit of local plants and animals.
He said integration between farming and conservation needed to become commonplace.
“Farmers are the biggest land managers, and rather than there being a tension between agriculture and conservation, we need to find synergy.”
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