Hope for the mountain pygmy-possum

ACK IN OCTOBER 2010, as part of activities to mark the 100th edition of AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC, we embarked on one of our most ambitious fundraisers. It was aimed at supporting a particular conservation initiative for the rapidly). Now confined to an area of just 500ha in the New South Wales and Victoria High Country, the tiny possum is the only alpine marsupial species. It faces extinction as climate change increases temperatures, decreasing snow cover. This reduces the period during which the species can hibernate to conserve energy before the arrival of the nutritious Bogong moths that sustain it through its breeding season.