Biodiversity Officer with the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP), Kerry Seaton said, “The area near Wood Point is the only location in Victoria that this particular plant grows, in two stands of warm temperate rainforest. It was discovered in 1976 by the Bairnsdale Field Naturalists.” 

“This is a slow-growing tree, but it eventually matures to about 12 metres in height and is distributed from the Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland to the Snowy River here in East Gippsland,” Mr Seaton said. 

“The main problem we have in protecting our small, isolated population of Buff Hazelwoods is that they are threatened by browsing by Sambar Deer, which are not native to Australia.” 

“The older plants that are more than three metres high pre-date the introduction of Sambar to East Gippsland, but trees less than three metres have been affected, with the browsing deer stunting growth and in some cases killing the trees.” 

“Without protection from the deer, the smaller and younger trees could eventually die from continuous browsing, leaving only a population of older larger trees. This could lead to the extinction of this species in Victoria.” 

“In 2008 we built the first fences protecting about half the population of the trees, then surveyed and monitored the site over the years and showed that recovery was possible when deer are excluded.” 

 “In 2015, state government funding from the Victorian Environment Partnership Program helped us to construct additional fencing and cages to protect more plants from deer, and to build skills and capacity of crew from Moogji Aboriginal Council in Orbost.” 

Project manager with Moogji Aboriginal Council, Chris Allen said, “This was a great opportunity for Moogji crew to work closely with DELWP’s Biodiversity team learning how to build fences at a remote site -demanding but rewarding work in steep and slippery rainforest. The hardest challenge was moving over a ton of fencing materials by hand to the sites and the reward was being directly involved in working on country to protect an endangered plant.” 

After the 2015 works about 70 per cent of the endangered plants were protected. Funding from the Government’s Biodiversity On-ground Action program was made available in June this year to complete the project, and the Moogji crew with their knowledge of the site and experience gained in 2015 were engaged to construct an additional 30 cages and one larger fenced area. 

“It’s been great to work alongside the Moogji Natural Resource Management team as they worked on country developing their skills and knowledge of threatened species management and their skills in fencing construction,” Mr Seaton said. 

“We’re all hoping that our efforts will save this small plot of endangered plants.”