Climate change can be particularly devastating to species restricted to high elevations. Mount Hotham, one of Victoria’s highest peaks, contains a remarkable cohort of threatened species. The area of habitat suitable for threatened reptiles and amphibians on and near Mount Hotham is small due to topography and elevation; these habitats have been increasingly destroyed, degraded and fragmented since winter-based recreational activities commenced in the 1920s. This century, already small and fragmented habitat patches have been further cleared, degraded, and fragmented, leaving these species in a precarious position. Despite having monitoring sites for threatened herpetofauna on and near Mount Hotham for more than 20 years, my team and I have not been consulted about proposed destruction during pre-destruction impact assessments of the species we monitor. Similarly, our publications containing specific warnings about further harms to threatened species’ habitats in this area, are often ignored in pre-destruction assessments. With patches of occupied habitat ever-shrinking due to this destruction, increasing pressure from climate change will make it very difficult and expensive to retain these species on and around Mount Hotham.
Nick Clemann (Fri,) studied this question.