North East Forest Alliance
MEDIA RELEASE
February 29, 2024
The NSW Government has released Reviewing the NSW Koala Strategy discussion paper and is seeking community input on current koala conservation actions.
The NSW Government’s 2021 Koala Strategy identifies that the highest priority to avoid the extinction of Koalas in the wild by 2050 is to protect their habitat, to this end they have allocated $71 million to buy private properties and implement conservation agreements over up to 22,000 hectares.
So far they have bought 10,000 ha of land to add to national parks and entered conservation agreements over 7,700 ha of private land.
Only part of this is high quality Koala habitat, said NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh.
“There are 230,000 hectares of State Forests on the NSW North Coast identified as high quality Koala habitat by the NSW Government and as Nationally Important Koala Areas by the Commonwealth Government, yet both Governments refuse to stop logging them.
“The Forestry Corporation is losing $15 million a year, and getting tens of millions in equity injections, to log tens of thousands of Koala feed trees in thousands of hectares of high quality Koala habitat every year.
“If the Government was serious about saving Koalas and saving money then their highest priority must be to protect Koala habitat on public land
“The Government has identified 50 koala populations “where koalas have the potential to persist over the long term”, and in 2021 prioritised 19 of these for immediate protection of strongholds, including in the Banyabba Area of Regional Koala Significance (Whiporie-Rappville).
“Despite this they are right now logging identified Koala strongholds in Braemar and Myrtle State Forests within the Banyabba ARKS.
“The Government is asking people to tell them what else they should be doing to protect koala habitat.
“Please tell them to immediately stop logging Koala habitat on public lands” Mr. Pugh said.
