Sydney Morning Herald OPINION 24 May 2023
Loggers get their way in proposed koala national park
The NSW government’s refusal to stop logging in the proposed Great Koala National Park on the Mid North Coast is in stark contrast to the Andrews government’s new move to end the Victorian native timber logging industry, possibly by the end of next year.
5 minutes with Fitz : Sun Herald 28 May 2023
Penny Sharpe is the NSW Minister for Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Heritage. I spoke to her on Thursday.
Sydney Morning Herald 23 May 2023
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.
The fight to save logging of koala habitat in Pine Creek State Forest
May 22, 2023
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.
read more.. https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/fight-save-logging-koala-habitat-pine-creek-state-forest
5 minutes with Fitz : Sun Herald 21 May 2023
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.
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.
Michael Dahlstrom
·Environment Editor
Wed, 17 May 2023 at 5:17 pm AEST·4-min read
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.”
Great Koala Park Concerns
NSW’s most significant koala populations under threat from logging plans
ON FEBRUARY 28, 2023 BY NPA NSW
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.
Friends of Pine Creek 