EPA ‘proves logging bad for koalas’

Outcomes of a recent study by the NSW Environmental Protection Authority prove that koalas have a significant preference for larger trees and more mature forest, with koala populations found to be collapsing in recently logged areas, according to the North East Forest Alliance (NEFA).

NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said, ‘The government now has the evidence that logging is bad for koalas and needs to take immediate action to identify and protect the remaining koala colonies that are in public forests threatened by logging. Every day that the Forestry Corporation is allowed to go on logging koalas’ preferred feed trees brings them closer to extinction.

‘We call on Premier Mike Baird to urgently intervene.’

The EPA assessed koala populations in four north coast state forests, finding that higher koala activity is ‘positively correlated with greater abundance and diversity of local koala feed trees, trees and forest structure of a more mature size class, and areas of least disturbance’.

The EPA found that where there had been limited recent logging in Royal Camp and Carwong State Forests there was high koala occupancy and that these are source areas where koala numbers are increasing.

‘NEFA had to intervene to stop the Forestry Corporation illegally logging koala high-use areas in Royal Camp State Forest southwest of Casino in 2012, and again in 2013 when they tried to resume logging,’ Mr Pugh said.

‘It became evident that we had come across an exceptionally important area for koalas, but were too late to stop half of it being logged.

‘The minister for the environment, Mark Speakman, has sat on his hands and done nothing for too long while the Forestry Corporation continue to rampage through koala habitat.

‘The government can no longer claim ignorance. Premier Mike Baird must intervene to save NSW’s koalas.

‘A good start would be removing Royal Camp and Carwong from the logging schedules and making them into a national park,’ Mr Pugh said.