Friends of the Koala president Lorraine Vass and Lismore City Council ecologist Dr Damian Licari with Hera at the Koala Care Centre in Lismore following the announcement that the Comprehensive Koala Plan of Management for southeast Lismore has been given state government approval.
Staff reporters
Lismore-based group Friends of the Koala has hit the trifecta this week.
First of all it won the 2013 Australia Day Sustainable Environment Award.
Then last week it released a new brochure, Koalas in our backyard, on how the community can best care for the koala population.
To cap it off, late last week the NSW Department of Planning approved the southeast Lismore Koala Plan of Management, which has been 18 years in the making.
Friends of the Koala president Lorraine Vass said the plan had involved a great deal of hard work over many years, getting local stakeholders, including farmers and the Lismore City Council, (LCC) on side.
The push for a plan began back in 1995 when ecologists Stephen Phillips and John Callaghan from the Australian Koala Foundation undertook a koala management study in the Goonellabah and East Lismore areas. They identified the tree species preferred by koalas and wrote recommendations about how to manage this unique urban population of wildlife.
But it hit more than a few roadblocks along the way and at one stage, she said, ‘even supporters wavered because they felt it had been watered down’.
‘This plan is a real credit to Council’s ecologist Damian Licari and other Integrated Planning staff. Once the political will finally existed, they put in place excellent procedures and processes that have achieved a really clear and positive outcome,’ Ms Vass said.
Late last year the KPoM won a local government Excellence in the Environment award from the Local Government and Shires Association. It scored a gong in the Natural Environment Policies, Planning and Decision Making category – largely for the comprehensive and transparent community consultation process that informed the document.
LCC is now required to make a few minor amendments to the KPoM before it takes effect. Once this is completed the council will advertise for expressions of interest for members of a koala advisory group which will oversee implementation of the management activities identified in the plan.
‘There are so many unknowns about the future of koalas – things like the impact of climate change, still on the horizon, that we don’t yet fully understand. But having this plan means we can get on with the job of managing what we’ve got, employing the best practices we can, using the knowledge we have now,’ Mrs Vass said.
‘This formalisation within local government means the survival of our koala population is now embedded in Lismore’s future.
‘We can now really start to manage the future of our koalas.’
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