In November I attended Clarence Valley Council’s meeting when the majority of councillors voted to support a motion to ask other affected councils to join in lobbying the State Government to abandon the planned Great Koala National Park (GKNP).
Whether those councillors really believed the government would yield to their demand after more than two years of intensive planning and consultation, I don’t know, but the nonsense spoken supporting the motion was unbelievable, especially the assertions that current native forest logging is sustainable.
The low point was when one councillor blithely claimed to disagree with the findings of research undertaken by Professor David Lindemayer and his team from the Australian National University.
Lindenmayer is a world-leading expert on forest ecology and resource management. He has published 49 books, some 1440 scientific works, including 943 peer-reviewed papers in international journals. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2008 and appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2024. He’s been awarded the Eureka Science Prize three times, the Whitley Award on 10 occasions, the Serventy Medal for Ornithology, the Australian Natural History Medallion, and was awarded the prestigious Whittaker Medal from the Ecological Society of America in 2018.
With councillors refusing to believe the experts, what chance do we have of them making sensible considered decisions?
As for the sustainability of the native forest timber industry, Forestry Corporation’s 2024-25 Annual Report, tells the real story. Another $32 million loss from its hardwood operations last year, bringing the total loss over the past four years to $85 million; not to mention the tens of millions paid to sawmillers for transport subsidies and mill upgrades over that period.
These losses, along with their ongoing failure to honour Wood Supply Agreements, shows that Forestry Corporation’s native forest logging is an economic disaster.
On a positive note, the week after our council's meeting, Coffs Harbour City Council unanimously and enthusiastically embraced the Great Koala Park initiative and all the benefits the entire community will enjoy as a result of its creation.
- John Edwards
Published in the Voices for the Earth column in The Clarence Valley Independent , 10 December, 2025.
NOTE: At Clarence Valley Council's December meeting, it was noted that Council had written to the other local councils (Coffs Harbour, Bellingen, Nambucca, Kempsey and Port Macquarie) urging them to join Clarence Council in opposing the creation of the GKNP. These councils had all responded to the CVC letter. While some indicated that they did not have a formal position on the creation of the GKNP, none of them indicated that they would join Clarence Council in formally opposing its creation.
