WA ring road approved by federal government threatens ancient trees and endangered wildlife

Ancient giant trees and threatened birds, mammals and ecosystems are being sacrificed for a ring road south of Perth approved by the Albanese government, leading conservationists say.

Habitat for the critically endangered western ringtail possum and endangered black cockatoos will be allowed to be cleared for a section of the $1.25bn Bunbury outer ring road.

The road proposal by the Western Australia government was approved at the end of June by a department official acting on behalf of the new federal environment minister, Tanya Plibersek.

The ring road proposal includes 10km of dual-carriageway outside Bunbury that cuts through the Gelorup environmental corridor, which is home to critically endangered western ringtail possums, black cockatoos and tiny black-stripe minnow fish.

In a second letter sent on Monday, the Friends of Gelorup Corridor group urged the minister to stop the project and investigate a lower-impact route for the road.

Brown said the road had been flagged for almost a quarter of a century, and an alternative route was proposed that would run over areas that had already been cleared.

Chapman said the environmental corridor was critical to the affected species because much of the area surrounding it had been cleared for housing, industry and farming. Almost 70 hectares of possum and cockatoo habitat will be allowed to be cleared, including up to 1,088 trees.

The group is also worried about the fate of four trees that are more than a hundred years old, including a woody pear thought to be 175 years old, two moodjars and a holly-leaf banksia at 200 years old.

In the latest letter to Plibersek, the group said construction fencing was already being erected and this had stopped a scientific survey of 152 GPS-marked tree hollows.

Dr Joe Fontaine, a forest ecologist at Murdoch University, said the state government was historically responsible for most clearing of the Banksia and Tuart woodlands and forests.

In a statement, the department said the road was approved with conditions that would manage impacts, including the requirement to prepare management plans. It said any work affecting the threatened species and woodlands could not start until those plans were finalised.

Main Roads WA was approached for comment.