North coast environment groups and the National Parks Association of NSW are calling on the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) to abandon plans to overhaul logging regulations, which will dilute protections for koalas.
Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals (IFOAs) are the rules that regulate logging in NSW. The EPA is currently writing new IFOAs which are due for public consultation in early 2016.
Documents acquired by environment groups and EDO (the Environmental Defenders Office) under freedom of information laws show that the new rules will spell more trouble for already beleaguered koala populations.
The new IFOAs seek to replace on-ground surveys with habitat models to streamline pre-logging koala surveys. Models use expected predictors of koala occurrence such as plant community types and presence of feed trees to predict where koalas should be. The groups say this will not work.
Dr Oisín Sweeney, science officer with the National Parks Association of NSW (NPA), said, ‘The experts who reviewed the EPA’s models found that they can’t predict the occurrence of koalas because they don’t take into account either the social nature of koalas or past disturbance.
‘Basically koalas, like humans, like to stay close to their families. These social ties mean that habitat is not the sole driver of koala occurrence. The models don’t consider past disturbance either: intensive logging and fires leave a legacy that affects whether koalas will use an area.
‘Perhaps the most shocking thing in the documents was the revelation that, despite almost ten decades of logging taking place in NSW, there has never been a study conducted to analyse the impact of logging on koalas.
‘It is extraordinary that despite huge documented declines in koala populations across the NSW coast, the EPA would consider weakening logging regulations without knowing what the current ones do.’
North Coast Environment Council spokesperson Susie Russell, said, ‘The EPA is playing fast and loose with the future of Australia’s favourite animal.
‘Then they make every effort to hide how bad the new methods are and force us to jump through legal hoops and pay hundreds of dollars to see the expert opinions.
‘The EPA needs to abandon this approach now. This is pretending to look for koalas, not looking for koalas.
‘And we know from past experience in Royal Camp that if you don’t look you don’t find and if you don’t find you don’t protect.
‘The modelling approach doesn’t work. There is no substitute for getting out of the office and looking for koalas in the forests.’
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If the idiots in the logging industry can’t comply with the extremely lax environment regulation, which is currently supposed to pass for habitat protection, don’t get rid of the Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals . Get rid of the forestry industry and the EPA ! We can do without these defunct and fraudulent bodies but surely we can’t be responsible for Koalas joining the ranks of the Thylacine in the name of a quick buck for a dying industry.
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