More than two years have passed since the Minns’ Government won office in NSW. One of its election promises – the creation of the Great Koala National Park (GKNP) – appears to be in limbo. While there have been various committees meeting and discussing the proposed national park, the time line for actually creating it keeps extending.
Those concerned with protection of koalas and other threatened species in the area of the proposed new park are watching its ecological viability being continually damaged because the Government is allowing Forestry Corporation NSW to industrially log in the State Forests which are being considered for inclusion in the park.
The proposed park will include about 1760 sq km of State Forests and 1400 sq km of existing National Parks in five local government areas from Kempsey to the Clarence. It will provide a network of protected koala habitat on public lands which would protect approximately twenty per-cent of NSW’s remaining wild koalas.
Many conservationists and community members are wondering just what will be left for biodiversity if the important habitat in these publicly-owned State Forests continues to be trashed by logging.
They have reason for concern because Koalas are listed as an Endangered Species in NSW, Queensland and the ACT. In 2020 a NSW Legislative Council Inquiry found that koalas will become extinct in NSW by 2050 if urgent action is not taken to protect their habitat. Sadly, urgent action on protecting koala habitat is obviously not on the NSW Government agenda.
This was quite apparent to the Nature Conservation Council of NSW when it pointed out that in the recent state budget there was no new funding for the GKNP, no plan to transition timber workers, and no pathway to protect the native forests our threatened species call home.
While the Government has no sense of urgency to protect Koalas and other important species and continues its delaying tactics on creating the GKNP, there are many community members who are doing what they can to delay or halt destructive logging in our State Forests.
- Leonie Blain
Published in the Voices for the Earth column in The Clarence Valley Independent , 2 July, 2025.
