Liz Jeremy, NSW National Parks Association President and local Mid North Coast resident, welcomed NSW Premier Chris Minns' positive response to a delegation representing local businesses and recreational groups calling for the declaration of the Great Koala National Park (GKNP).
Ms Jeremy said, "More than a hundred businesses and recreational groups from the Coffs Harbour region have signed an open letter telling the NSW Government that the Great Koala National Park is not just good for Koalas, it will be a drawcard for regional tourism and a boon for local business."
"Tourism is so important for our region, and the more than a hundred businesses who signed onto the open letter are saying that the Great Koala National Park is the natural and cultural wonder that will put us on the national stage along with the Great Barrier Reef and Uluru."
The open letter highlights the urgency of permanently protecting 176,000 hectares of State Forest as part of the new national park. The open letter states "Every day the decision to create the Great Koala National Park is delayed, we lose more koalas, and the tremendous potential for tourism and conservation slips away.”
The proposed park, which was promised by NSW Labor before it won the March 2023 state election, will include areas of publicly-owned State Forests as well as the 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 20% of NSW's remaining wild koalas.
The delay in creating the promised park has been of increasing concern to local conservationists and community members. They are watching important habitat in the proposed park area continuing to be industrially logged by the NSW Forestry Corporation. Many of them are wondering just what will be left of biodiversity if the important habitat in these publicly-owned State Forests continues to be trashed by logging.
