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.
