NEFA Koala Campaign

Posted byFriends of Pine CreekPosted inUncategorized

Ending Government Koala Propaganda

NEFA has written to Environment Minister Penny Sharpe after pre-publication release of a paper on a long-term Koala study by Dr. Andrew Smith and John Pile at Pine Creek that provides more proof that the NSW Natural Resources Commission’s (NRC) claims that logging has no impact on Koalas are based on false assumptions. The paper identifies that male Koalas wander widely, often calling from low quality habitat, whereas breeding females are mostly restricted to high quality habitat with high diversities and densities of larger feed trees, meaning that relying on recordings of male Koalas to assess distribution and impacts on Koalas, as the NRC does, gives misleading results (see also). This paper reinforces the urgent need for the NSW Government to urgently reconsider its fundamentally flawed Koala strategy and grossly inadequate logging rules for Koalas. It also exemplifies the need to disband or reform the NRC due to their bias and failure to provide Koalas with the protection they urgently require.

Internal Government documents show that the EPA share many of NEFA’s concerns about the logging rules for Koalas and the bias of the NRC. They also show that since at least May 2023 the EPA negotiated with the Forestry Corporation to make relatively minor amendments to the logging rules (CIFOA Protocols) to provide minimal increased legal protection for Koalas within the Great Koala National Park. Final agreement to proceed with the legal changes was abandoned at the last minute after consultation with the Ministers on the 25 July. Instead on 4 August the EPA’s Tony Chappel wrote to FCNSW’s Anshul Chaudhary detailing proposed legally-unenforceable voluntary measures, most of which Chaudhary refused to accept (even though they had apparently previously been agreed to).

NEFA have once again implored Penny Sharpe to show she cares about Koalas by stopping the Government’s blatant propaganda and take urgent action to stop the Forestry Corporation logging important Koala habitat on State forests. We reiterated our request of 5 July for State Forests:

  1. urgently re-instate the requirement for thorough pre-logging Koala surveys, this time undertaken by independent experts
  2. exclude logging from, and rehabilitate, the most important habitat for Koalas, including:
    1. areas with high Koala usage, including home ranges
    2. patches with relatively high densities and diversities of Preferred Koala Feed Trees
    3. likely refugia from the impacts of climate change, including droughts, heatwaves and wildfires.
  3. protect mature (>30 cm DBH) Preferred Koala Feed Trees in potential and linking habitat.