Rallies took place yesterday at Coffs Harbour and Sydney as multiple groups called for an end to logging in the areas identified for the Great Koala National Park (GKNP) and for NSW to establish the park as promised.
In January 2015 the NSW ALP opposition leader Luke Foley first promised, if elected, to create the 315,000 hectare GKNP, incorporating 175,000 ha of State Forests and 140,000ha of existing reserves. This commitment was also taken to the 2019 election.
‘For the 2023 election the NSW ALP also committed $80 million to create an iconic GKNP protecting approximately 20 per cent of the wild koala population in NSW, the catch was that there would first be an assessment of the 176,000ha of State Forest,’ explained the Nature Conservation Council NSW in an open letter to Premier Minns and the NSW government that has also been signed by 31 groups including the National Parks Association.
‘While the assessment was not completed until early November, conservation groups were still assured a Cabinet decision would be made in December 2024. Now we are told a decision will be made early in 2025. Meanwhile, almost ten years after the ALP committed to protecting the full GKNP, and 21 months after the election of the Minns Government, the logging of the GKNP and core Koala habitat continues, with no commitment as to when they will stop logging the areas the assessment has identified as having amongst the highest densities of endangered koalas and greater gliders.’
Increased logging
A new assessment by the North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) shows that in the 21 months since the election of NSW Labor the NSW Forestry Corporation have logged 7,185ha of the proposed GKNP, 8.4 per cent of the State Forests able to be logged, with new operations now starting.
Using Forestry Corporation’s logging data for the GKNP up until 25 March 2024 NEFA have claimed that, ‘logging has increased from a monthly average of 211ha under the NSW Coalition government to a monthly average of 342ha under the NSW Minns government, an increase of 62 per cent, with a marked acceleration in the past nine months’.
NEFA spokesperson and study author Dailan Pugh said that, ‘the Forestry Corporation dismisses my report with the patently false claim that I assessed gross areas without accounting for all the areas excluded from logging, they also refer to volumes removed rather than hectares logged. Instead of denying the extent of their logging, the Forestry Corporation needs to come clean and release their data for the areas of the park logged from 25 March 2023 until 20 December 2024.’
Greens Environment Spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said that, ‘the Greens will be putting the environment top of the agenda during the federal election campaign and in any power-sharing parliament which is looking increasingly likely.’
‘You can’t save koalas while continuing to destroy their homes. Unless we take urgent action to end clearing of critical habitat, koalas will be extinct in NSW by 2050.’
Local Greens candidate for the federal seat of Richmond Mandy Nolan told The Echo that, ‘if I’m elected to Canberra, we will work towards ending native forest logging across the country as a top priority.’
Moratorium
The two rallies yesterday called for a moratorium on clearing koala habitat and an end to native forest logging in the GKNP with the Coffs Harbour rally seeing around 150 people calling for the GKNP to be declared.
‘The purpose of the rallies was to bring to the government’s attention the fact it is time to declare the park as they promised,’ National Parks Association’s Grahame Douglas told The Echo.
‘We are saying it is time to make the decision. The government has done the assessments and consultations with the Indigenous groups, the community, and industry of the 176,000ha that were assessed. The assessment demonstrated the high conservation value of all these areas.
‘It is time to move forward and declare the GKNP. The budget is in place and it is time for the government to implement its key promise to create the park; they committed to it three times prior to being elected, and again coming into government they promised they would put the GKNP in place. It is time to put an end to the logging and time to declare the GKNP.’
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