There will be no more koalas in the wild in NSW by 2050 if we don’t take action to preserve their habitat, according to a NSW state parliamentary inquiry in 2020, but the Nature Conservation Council (NCC) say NSW Labor still isn’t doing enough.
Added to this forest protectors have highighted that the NSW Forestry Corporation (NSW FC) is failling to mark and preserve trees for protection in the areas they are logging and that the NSW FC appear to have earmarked up to 19,000 hectares of forest in the proposed Great Koala National Park (GKNP) for destruction before April next year.
Interactive map
The Forestry Corporation’s Planning Portal shows the forest compartments on the chopping block before the Great Koala National Park boundaries are finalised. The Nature Conservation Council of New South Wales (NCC), the state’s leading environmental advocacy organisation, has released the analysis showing the proposed logging of 19,000 hectares via an interactive map that shows past and planned logging in the proposed park by NSW Forestry Corporatipon.
‘Forestry Corporation have been destroying vast swathes of habitat in the proposed new GKNP, right as it’s being assessed for inclusion,’ Nature Conservation Council NSW Chief Executive Officer Jacqui Mumford said.
‘The fact is that this is some of the most important intact koala habitat in the state and it should be protected, not put on the chopping block, while decisions are made about the National Park.
‘It is untenable that so much has been destroyed, and will be destroyed in the coming year, before these areas have been assessed. We don’t want to see one more hectare destroyed in this park. We need to see a moratorium on logging in the proposed park now.’
‘The new analysis reveals Forestry Corporation is continuing its desperate attempt to take as much timber as possible before the park is protected and are attempting to make park unviable as koala sanctuary,’ said the press release from the NCC.
Koala trees not identified
The call for the moratorium on logging in the proposed GKNP areas has come directly on the heels of the community reporting the NSW Forestry Corporation to the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) for their failure to identify koala trees legally required to be retained at the Orara East State Forest, near Coffs Harbour in their pre-logging survey. Only 27 per cent of trees required to be retained for koalas were marked for protection.
Greens MP and spokesperson for the environment Sue Higginson said ‘It is disgraceful, although not surprising, that the Forestry Corporation has only protected a quarter of the trees that are required to be protected for koalas – especially in a forest that [NSW] Premier Minns has promised will become a National Park.’
‘This forest is critical koala habitat and the mis-identification of koala trees means that there will be far fewer trees available for this threatened species.
‘This failure by the Forestry Corporation means that the logging in the forest is in breach of the law and will reduce the number of koalas remaining in the Great Koala National Park. It is only thanks to the quick and diligent work of the community that this pre-logging survey has been revealed as unlawful and catastrophic for the koalas. The EPA needs to step up immediately. The planned logging should not be allowed to go on. If this forest is logged over the coming days, then koalas will be killed and the area will see a massive reduction in koala habitat,’ Ms Higginson said.
When will Labor fulfill its promise to protect koalas?
‘NSW Labor came to power more than a year ago with a key election promise – to protect koala habitat on the Mid-North Coast of NSW, and we are still yet to see it,’ said Ms Mumford.
‘Over the past year Forestry Corporation has continued to decimate the forests that are being considered for inclusion in the park.
‘This area will become a national park and we need to be protecting its values.”
Last year after sustained community pressure, Environment Minister Penny Sharpe declared a moratorium on logging within ‘Koala Hubs’, effectively protecting five per cent of the proposed park.
‘Leaving 95 per cent of the proposed park vulnerable to logging is simply not good enough to ensure the survival of koalas in the wild. If we don’t stop them, Forestry Corporation will destroy the park before it is protected. This is an area that is home to one in five of the state’s surviving koalas.
‘With this species on the brink of extinction, we can’t afford another year of destruction of this key koala habitat, otherwise come 2050 we might have a Great Koala National Park without any koalas.
It’s long past time for the NSW Government to commit to a moratorium on logging within the proposed boundaries of the Great Koala National Park. The government knows this park is going to happen. Forestry Corporation knows it’s going to happen. Allowing logging to continue is an abandonment of these forests and the reason they were identified as being worthy of protection.
If the government is serious about ensuring koalas exist in the wild beyond 2050 then a moratorium on logging in the proposed Great Koala National Park, where a fifth of the state’s koalas live, is an urgent necessity.’
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