Fears Aussie state will 'panic log' proposed 315,000-hectare koala park
The minister is being urged to intervene and save the koalas before they disappear from NSW within 20 years.
Concerns are growing that a plan to help save endangered koalas in NSW from extinction could crumble.
There is little doubt that unless more habitat is protected the species will be wiped out across NSW and Queensland, meaning Victoria and South Australia will be the only places to see them in the wild in less than 17 years.
NSW’s proposed Great Koala National Park (GKNP) is set to house around 20 per cent of the state’s dwindling koala population, but conservationists fear thousands of hectares could be harvested by loggers before they are protected.
The plan will see 176,000 hectares of state forest assessed for inclusion in the park. These areas would link together a string of isolated national parks, creating a massive 315,000-hectare protected area on the north coast.
Most koalas don’t live in existing national parks because they prefer lush coastal forests and the GKNP would help protect the feed trees they eat.
Key koala facts:
Koalas have been declared endangered in NSW, ACT and Queensland
A NSW parliamentary inquiry found koalas will likely be extinct in NSW by 2050
Logging operations and development are destroying habitat in Victoria and South Australia
Minister allowing logging to continue in proposed koala park
While NSW Labor was elected on the promise of creating the park, no changes will occur until a process of public, union and industry consultation has taken place. Calls to place an interim moratorium on land clearing within state forests have been rejected by environment minister Penny Sharpe.
The minister has the unenviable task of finding a solution that protects koalas but also meets the requirements of Forestry Corporation NSW — a state-owned agency that has lost millions in recent years and been ordered to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for illegal logging of koala habitat.
A spokesperson for the minister confirmed the government is still committed to creating the GKNP in its first term.
Does the forestry industry believe its operations harm wildlife?
Local ecologist Mark Graham believes hundreds of hectares of core koala habitat have recently been lost to “industrial logging”. “Operations have been so intensive and extensive that the forest cover has been effectively removed and destroyed,” he told Yahoo.
Forestry Corporation of NSW maintains its policy of “selective harvesting” works, saying its research shows koalas occupy harvested and unharvested areas of forest at the same rate. “Trees are retained right across the harvested area to provide feed and shelter for these species,” a spokesperson said.
Is logging of koala habitat escalating?
With parts of the wider area slated for protection, Victoria Jack from The Wilderness Society is concerned “panic logging” will occur across parts of the proposed GKNP. “They appear to be rushing to log as much as possible while the window is still open to them,” she said.
Her concerns are supported by on-the-ground monitoring by conservationists who believe logging is being ramped up, however, this is something state-owned Forestry Corporation of NSW denies. “There has been no intensification of harvesting in any area of the north coast,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
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Dr Timothy Cadman, a senior research fellow at Griffith University who specialises in forestry has compiled a map of the proposed park and the logging operations that could erode it.
He said his research indicates the north coast “wood basket” is being “rapidly emptied”. “If it continues, by the time we get the (GKNP) declared, it won't be koala habitat,” he said. “The minister can stop all this with a stroke of a pen and just suspend the logging.”
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