They paved paradise, put up a parking lot: the unfolding herpetofauna tragedy at Mount Hotham, Australia

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. In 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 for the species that 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.