A critically endangered orchid has received a late reprieve after a local environmental group threatened legal action against the Victorian government, prompting officials to cancel a planned burn of its habitat.
The bald-tip beard orchid – a species with fewer than 10 plants remaining in the Australian wild – was thought extinct until rediscovered in 1968 at a site near Whroo, in central Victoria, where the last surviving wild population has persisted.
That site was included in a 183 hectare area scheduled for controlled burns by state government agency Forest Fire Management Victoria, along with two further burns nearby in areas designated as potential orchid habitat.
But on Tuesday – after questions from Guardian Australia and a legal letter from a local conservation group – a planned fuel reduction burn at the site containing the orchids was officially removed from the schedule.
When asked, Forest Fire Management Victoria did not explain why burns were originally planned in an area containing the last known population of a critically endangered orchid.
Instead, a spokesperson for the agency said specialist staff assessed biodiversity values at each potential burn site and developed plans to protect them.