The Whroo Goldfields Conservation Management Network celebrated the instillation of 1000 nest boxes last week.

In the wake of the milestone the group’s president Orlando Talamo said work was really only just beginning, with stiff competition for nest boxes spread across box-ironbark forest from Heathcote to Murchison.

Since 2009 the conservation network had installed nest boxes for sugar gliders and phascogales struggling to find the tree hollows they evolved to shelter in.

Centuries of deforestation had left much of central Victoria without trees old enough to naturally form hollows.

Mr Talamo said occupancy rates of nest boxes in the Whroo Goldfields area were sky high.

“In the first 360 boxes we installed in 2009 we recently found a 69 per cent wildlife occupancy rate,” he said.

That figure was as high as 90 per cent in some parts of the forest.

“In those areas we also see very little in the way of tree hollows and animals there are desperate,” Mr Talamo said.

Part of the problem was the amount of time it took for hollows to form.

“It could take 150 years for a tree to form hollows. That’s five generations of people working on this,” Mr Talamo said.

What was more, many animals would only use hollows facing away from the elements. The hollows also needed to be small enough to shut out predators like owls.

Forest rehabilitation could also be made harder when trees were cut down. Mr Talamo knew of about 40 trees in the area which were cut down last year, some illegally.

Despite the challenges, the Whroo Goldfields CMN was working on more measures to tide wildlife over until the forest was finally full of tree hollows.

As well as monitoring and repairing nest boxes where necessary, the group was talking about adding at least another 1000 within the next ten years.

“Ultimately we need maybe 10 times as many nest boxes throughout these forests,” Mr Talamo said.