ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE GREAT KOALA NATIONAL PARK

 National Parks Association of NSW

Media Release

The National Parks Association of NSW (NPA) welcomes the NSW Government’s announcement of the declaration of the Great Koala National Park.

 ‘This is an incredible moment for Australia’s National Parks’, stated NPA NSW President Liz Jeremy, ‘the culmination of more than a decade of determined advocacy for the future of koalas by local communities and conservationists’. 

‘We congratulate the NSW Government on finally making the Great Koala National Park a reality.  The road between NPA’s original 2015 report to the NSW Government and today’s decision has been a long and often frustrating one, but emphatically worth it’. 

Dr Douglas of NPA Coffs Coast Branch, stated ‘What has been achieved is much more than the permanent protection of 176,000 hectares of forest and koala habitat.  NPA’s vision for the Great Koala National Park was always about more than a change of land title, it was about connecting existing reserves with vulnerable habitats to secure a forest estate of international conservation significance.  A forest estate large enough to connect escarpment to coast, safeguard entire catchments and give our threatened forest fauna and flora the best possible chance of survival’.

‘While celebrating the new park we must also acknowledge that it won’t be enough to guarantee the survival of koalas in NSW.  The decade since the 2015 report proposal has provided a much better understanding of the distribution of koalas across existing reserves, State Forests and plantations.  The next step is to identify areas outside the park that will need to be managed in ways that allow for the movement and persistence of koalas’ Ms Jeremy noted. 

Liz Jeremy noted ‘We should all recognise the impact of the decision on the forestry industry and the families who rely upon forestry jobs.  NPA fully supports the Government’s proposed transition package, especially measures to increase investment in the establishment of plantations on degraded agricultural lands’.

NPA acknowledges the support it has gained from other conservation organisations on the north coast including the Nambucca Valley Conservation Association, Bellingen Environment Centre, Clarence Valley Environment Centre, North-east Forest alliance and North Coast Environment Centre.  We also thank the Nature Conservation Council of NSW and World Wide Fund for Nature for their ongoing support.

RICHMOND RIVER KOALA PARKS PROPOSAL

Conservation and community groups are calling for 56,000 hectares of State Forests in the southern Richmond River Valley and along the Richmond Range to be protected.

The aim of this proposal is to:

• Ø   Safeguard a nationally important Koala population, genetically distinct from those in the Great Koala National Park.

• Ø    Protect the habitat of more than 130 threatened species.

• Ø    Improve the health of the Richmond River.

• Ø    Create a regionally significant wildlife corridor linking Bundjalung National Park on the coast to the Border Ranges National Park.

• Ø    Advance NSW’s target of 30% land protection by 2030 in one of Australia’s richest biodiversity hotspots.

As part of the campaign Ballina MP Tamara Smith has arranged an information session about the new national park proposal in the Macquarie Room at Parliament House on Wednesday 17 September from 6-7 pm.   

Speakers will be Dailan Pugh OAM from NEFA and koala expert Dr Steve Phillips.

PERPETUAL POLLUTION

 A highly successful roadshow was conducted locally over the last weekend in July, focussed on the social, environmental, cultural and economic threats posed by mining.

 The events, held at Copmanhurst, Grafton, Drake and Dorrigo, were organised by the Clarence Catchment Alliance which had invited the Environmental Defenders Office to advise landowners of their rights when approached by a mining company requesting access to their properties.

 Among the many threats that are posed by mining, is the potential, particularly in mountainous landscapes in high rainfall areas, of the pollution of waterways as a result of tailings dam failure. However, a lesser-known pollution threat comes from acid mine drainage (AMD), aka acid rock drainage.

 AMD occurs naturally when sulphide minerals in the waste rock from mining react with air and water to form sulphuric acid. This acid leaches out metals in the rock, which can enter nearby waterways, or even seep into groundwater.

 In the USA it’s been described as the largest environmental problem facing the mining industry, with the international organisation, Earthworks, presenting a stark picture of the impacts, describing it as “perpetual pollution”. This is because it can continue indefinitely, long after mining has ended. They point to a literature review that concluded that “no hard rock surface mines exist today that can demonstrate that large scale acid mine drainage can be stopped once it occurs”.

 AMD also occurs across Australia, including here, in the Clarence River catchment. Drake’s Mt Carrington mine has long been known for AMD, and was responsible for polluting Sawpit Creek, a tributary of the Clarence, in the mid-1990s, and is likely still seeping into the river today, despite significant expenditure by both the mining companies responsible, and NSW taxpayers.

The NSW Derelict Mined Lands Rehabilitation Program spent $155,000 on AMD rehabilitation in the Drake area in 1996, with a further $100,000 budgeted for 1997, and ongoing expenditure ever since.

Now, following a string of failed mining ventures at Mt Carrington, Legacy Minerals, has acquired the mine, announcing yet more exploratory work.

 Can we really afford the risk?

 

-        John Edwards

 Published in the Voices for the Earth column in The Clarence Valley Independent , 6th August, 2025.