What is happening to forest wildlife? NSW’s state-owned logging company is currently logging great swathes of our Great Koala National Park (GKNP). That is NOT great as a mere five per cent is protected. There needs to be a halt on all logging within our GKNP. Sadly, over 50 per cent of our pre-1788 native forests and woodlands in our state alone are gone.
Despite the Labor Party promising to protect koalas and therefore critical koala habitat, are koalas waiting patiently in their tree-top homes expecting salvation? I doubt they realise that government legislation only requires five to ten ‘potential’ koala trees to be protected per hectare on public land. I’m glad they don’t realise that of NSW state ‘managed’ native forests (covering almost two million hectares) most have been logged – more logging is coming their way. On the mid North Coast (Coffs Harbour) logging has increased by 385 per cent since the announcement of the GKNP. Forestry Corp’s attitude is one of ‘grab it while you can’ and destroy the significance of our proposed koala national park.
Even when Forestry Corp has been fined for illegal logging and not abiding by their own rules and regulations, it takes years for these breaches to be finalised and for the public to be informed. Not surprisingly these illegal activities are discovered by forest activists at great personal cost, and not government authorities. This is probably why governments go to great lengths to keep those ‘types’ out of OUR public native forests. Those ‘types’ are treated as criminals, while the real criminals are protected by governments we elect.
Facts are: 43 species now have 50 per cent or less of their pre-1788 habitat remaining and nine species have 30 per cent or less; koalas, black cockatoos and quolls are among the most impacted. It is the bigger trees that have the most nectar, browsing, invertebrates and stability for nesting and roosting, and it is not until they are over 120 years old they begin to develop the hollows in their branches and trunks that seventy species (28 per cent) of vertebrates in north-east NSW rely upon for dens, nests and roosts, and not till they are over 220 years old do the hollows get big enough for larger animals. Animals that rely upon the resources provided by older trees are becoming increasingly endangered as their foods and homes are lost, populations decline and social systems collapse. Imagine if someone came and smashed half of your house down, while you were in it?
This breaks my already shattered heart and still the madness continues. As we speak, Forestry Corp is bashing on our premier’s door and demanding that he listen to them and NOT the people who elected him. In the past two years the logging industry made a loss of $30 million. Over the past ten years governments have graciously provided this unsustainable logging giant with over $250 million of subsidies, thanks to the NSW taxpayers. I despair and I’m not a koala, thankfully.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
