Conservationists target paper office

Leadbeater's possums in a state-owned Victorian forest will be wiped out within the next three decades if logging to make Reflex office paper continues, environmentalists say.

Protesters have marched to the tune of the television sitcom The Adams Family outside an Officeworks Sydney store, which sells the paper brand.

"We sell to Officeworks, who sell at cheap price perks, behind the dark truth lurks, the Reflex family," sang the protesters wearing black clothing, white masks and carrying cardboard chain saws.

Wilderness Society spokesman Peter Cooper said animals such as the Leadbeater's possum, Sooty owl and Baw Baw frog were being displaced from Victoria's Central Highlands Forest by the felling of trees to make office paper.

"Less than 1000 Leadbeater's possums remain in the wild and are not expected to survive beyond 2050 if logging does not cease," he told the 12 protesters gathered at Glebe.

Mr Cooper said Reflex paper, owned by Australian Paper, was made from trees grown in the state-owned forest because it was cheap.

"The Victorian government sells it for less than it is worth," he said.

David Walsh, a spokesman for VicForests - the state government's commercial forestry arm which manages the logging and selling of native forests - said he was aware of the existence of the Leadbeater's possums.

He said exclusion zones had been put in place following advice from the Department of Sustainability and Environment.

"We refrain from logging trees in those areas of the forest," Mr Walsh said.

"The aim is to protect the habitat of these animals."

He believed the possum's best known nesting sites were in national parks and conservation reserves - where harvesting was prohibited.

Mr Walsh said VicForests harvested about five and a half thousand hectares of forest each year, which was less than 0.1 per cent of the state's 7.8 million hectares of native forested area.

A spokesman for Australian Paper said the company sourced its products from privately-owned plantations, recycled sources and the Victorian government.

"Our wood supplies from the Victorian government are sourced using sustainable, third-party certified, forestry practices," chief executive Jim Henneberry said in a statement.

The Australian Paper spokesman said the wood was taken from regrowth areas and not from old growth areas.