Iconic animal’s habitat could shrink by area 41 times bigger than Sydney
Koalas are listed as endangered in NSW and Queensland, a new report warns.
Australia loves to market itself as a wildlife friendly tourism destination. But conservationists are warning the future of one iconic animal is "dire".
Koala habitat 41 times the area of Sydney’s CBD could be cleared to make way for new projects. The 11,644 hectares of land would be flattened if 23 new coal mines and expansions in NSW and Queensland are approved by Australia’s government.
Details of the plans are contained in an alarming new report that investigates imminent threats to koalas from both habitat loss and climate change. Most of the coal mine applications will be assessed by Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, who will be asked to consider their impact on endangered populations of the species.
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The report was commissioned by a coalition of environment groups called the Koalas not Coal Alliance which includes the Lock the Gate Alliance and NSW Nature Conservation Council.
Another signatory to the report is the Queensland Conservation Council, whose nature campaigner Natalie Frost warned one of the nation’s most “iconic animals” is facing a “dire future”.
While the expanse of habitat under threat is hard to picture, images supplied by the campaigners show the proposed development sites and the forest that could be lost.
Two states repeatedly singled out for land clearing records
Both NSW and Queensland have been regularly singled out by conservationists for their land clearing activities. In May, the Minns government’s own scientists found 50 per cent of the state’s threatened species are expected to be wiped out in a century. A 2020 parliamentary inquiry found koalas will likely be wiped out much sooner – by the year 2050.
The state has been heavily scrutinised this month over its environmental decisions including the renewal of a project that regularly kills endangered marine life. It was elected to government promising new wildlife protection projects including a massive koala national park that's yet to be created.
Further north, the Miles government has been urged to slow land clearing rates across Queensland. It’s because of widespread habitat destruction in that state that Australia as a nation is the only developed nation on Worldwide Fund for Nature’s list of deforestation hotspots.
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The new report calls for a moratorium on all new coal mines and an end to biodiversity offsets — a scheme that enables developers to bulldoze land in one area if they promise to protect it elsewhere.
It also urges the Albanese government to enact the nature protection laws it promised ahead of its election more than two years ago, as well as a phase-out of fossil fuels.
“The window of time to act is rapidly shrinking for the Albanese government to prevent further climate-fuelled catastrophes, and the extinction of the iconic koala,” NSW Nature Conservation Council CEO Jacqui Mumford said.
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