Friends of Pine Creek members and supporters gathered on Friday 15th March to mourn the loss of Compartment 14, a former Koala Hub in Pine Creek State Forest.
The destruction of this koala habitat in November 2023 marks the first loss in Pine Ck SF in what is coming to be known as the Great Koala Funeral Park, with further logging scheduled to commence in 5 weeks. In a ceremony officiated by Forest Chaplain Jason John, mourners gathered in the barren compartment 14 to farewell the Koala Hub.
Thank you to the Reverend Jason John, the Red Rebels, Knitting Nannas, also councillors Jennie Fenton and Jonathan Cassel for your attendance.
All photos from FOPC apart from those credited to Chris D ( Degan)
Pressure is mounting on the state government to halt logging within the boundaries of the proposed Great Koala National Park, which it promised to create near the state’s Mid North Coast during the last two election campaigns.
Forestry Corporation NSW plans show that over the next 12 months it intends to log 30,813 hectares of a total 175,000 hectares of state forests that fall within the boundaries of the proposed Great Koala National Park, home to one in five of the state’s surviving koalas.
Local communities are fighting to stop New South Wales Forestry Corporation from logging an area critical for koala connectivity and habitat in Pine Creek State Forest on the NSW mid-north coast.
Forestry Corp plan to clear-fell swaths of Gumbaynggirr land, near Coffs Harbour. But many parts of Pine Creek State Forest are highly biodiverse, and numerous surveys have found the area to be prime habitat for endangered koalas.
The Pine Creek/Bongil Bongil National Park population is possibly the only stable population left in the Great Koala National Park proposal; it needs help now, as a National Parks and Wildlife Service survey confirmed late last year.
Thrilled to see Dr Stephen Phillips interviewed by Peter Fitzsimons in today’s Sun Herald. Dr Phillips has a PhD in koala ecology and over 40 years field experience including much work done in Pine Creek State Forest. Like us, he supports a moratorium on further logging in Pine Creek SF and others that contain known koala habitat.
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.
Conservationists are concerned about logging within the proposed Great Koala National Park. Source: Mark Graham
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.
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.
Conservationists are calling for a moratorium on logging within the GKNP. Source: Mark Graham
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.
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.”
NPA NSW is concerned that Forestry Corporation is fast tracking plans to clear-fell some of NSW’s most important koala habitat in the Coffs Harbour-North Bellingen region.
‘We are calling on the shareholder ministers of the Forestry Corporation, the Minister for Agriculture and the Treasurer, to immediately suspend planned clear felling operations in Pine Creek and Tuckers Nob State Forests, said NPA President Dr Grahame Douglas.
‘The plans disclosed on the Forestry Corporation plan portal would destroy an essential ‘bridge ‘or corridor of koala habitat connecting nationally significant koala populations in Bindarri and Bongil Bongil National Parks.
‘We are calling on the Minister for Agriculture and the Treasurer to direct Forestry Corporation to cease all logging activities in the state forests within the proposed Great Koala National Park, especially those affecting the regionally critical habitat corridors through Pine Creek and Tuckers Nob.
‘While NPA welcomes recent announcements by both the NSW and Commonwealth governments to purchase or improve the management of koala habitat on private lands, no government can pretend to be serious about saving koalas if it allows this destruction in Pine Creek and Tuckers Nob to continue’.
‘Also of concern, the Forestry Corporation plans to clear-fell koala habitat in Pine Creek and Tuckers Nob State Forests are relying upon inappropriately classifications, which classify fully functional native forest as plantation’ concluded Dr Douglas.
The New South Wales Labor party will establish a new national park stretching from Kempsey to Coffs Harbour in a bid to save the state’s endangered koala population.
On Thursday 19 January 2023 the opposition leader, Chris Minns, will announce that the party will re-commit to establishing the “great koala national park” on the NSW north coast, which could see an area of about 300,000 hectares of key habitat for the native species protected from logging.
Australia’s koala population is endangered but efforts to create a new sanctuary are contentious, with environmentalists and the forestry industry at loggerheads.
Pine Creek forest habitat is precious and home many native species, including the endangered koala. Thank you to B.A.N. for standing up to help protect Pine Creek from logging.
All are welcome to visit camp, it’s a lovely vibe with committed people who care for the forest, and see for yourself how precious this habitat is.
If you want more information on how to get involved with the action for Pine Creek, follow Bellingen Activist Network or visit camp.
NEW CAMP ANNOUNCEMENT
Once again the community has risen up to defend sacred and biodiverse forests across Gumbaynggirr lands – this time in Pine Creek SF, just 20 minutes from Bellingen.
After last year’s valiant dedication from First Nations and allies of the community to protect Newry SF, B.A.N, with the support of Friends of Pine Creek have established a new blockade located at the intersection of the state forest and Bongil Bongil National Park.
We believe in the power of non-violent direct action and collective power of community as the last line of defence against ongoing colonial destruction, and that forests are worth protecting from the corporate greed of Forestry Corporation NSW.
We’re asking you to join us again on the frontlines!
We are defending the proposed ‘Forest Bridge’ – the only piece of forest connecting Bongil Bongil on the coast to the Bindarri Koalas in the hinterlands.
This narrow corridor connects two areas of “intergenerational significance” for the dungirr (koala) and will ensure their resilience to avoid extinction by 2050.
The Forest Bridge is also vital for protecting many other threatened species who survived the Black Summer Bushfires, including squirrel glider, brush-tailed phascogale, Tiger quoll and yellow-bellied glider.
This key piece of ecological information again has been overlooked by Forestry Corporation NSW who plan to imminently clear-fell the area.
Friends of Pine Creek have been campaigning to protect the area for over 30 years. Follow them for ecological updates and education on the importance of Pine Creek for the whole region.
Let’s send a strong message to NSW Forestry Corporation and the NSW Government that our community is still here, and that we will blockade as necessary. We will put our bodies in the way to protect native forests!
This is Gumbaynggirr land! Yaam Gumbaynggirr Jagun!
The NSW Labor Government took office promising to create a vast koala sanctuary on the state’s mid-north coast – the Great Koala National Park. Despite the threat of koala extinction in the state, more than a year later the Great Koala National Park is yet to be established. Officially, the government cites consultation with stakeholders as the reason for the delay. Last year, NSW Premier Chris Minns’ remarkable admission disclosed a further motive for the go-slow: the government is reluctant to create the new national park or end logging and land clearing that is destroying koala habitat until it secures another way to make money from the trees. In essence, it wants to exploit the forests for carbon credits.
In this video report from the Australia Institute’s Walkley Award-Winning Senior Fellow Stephen Long, we talk to people fighting to save the native forests, and peel back the curtains on why the koala habitat on the mid-north coast is still being logged.
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:
urgently re-instate the requirement for thorough pre-logging Koala surveys, this time undertaken by independent experts
exclude logging from, and rehabilitate, the most important habitat for Koalas, including:
areas with high Koala usage, including home ranges
patches with relatively high densities and diversities of Preferred Koala Feed Trees
likely refugia from the impacts of climate change, including droughts, heatwaves and wildfires.
protect mature (>30 cm DBH) Preferred Koala Feed Trees in potential and linking habitat.
30°25’17.2″S 152°59’05.5″E
Friends of Pine Creek 