The Great Koala Protected Area Bill, 2021
Dear Supporters,
All I want this Christmas is the Great Koala National Park
The future of the Koala is of great concern to a majority of Austraians, who would like to see the State and Federal Governments end native forest logging and following the lead of the Victorian and Western Australia Governments who recently announced plans to stop logging native forests, investing instead to expand their plantation estates.
This month, the Greens Cate Faehrmann, MLC will introduce the Great Koala Protected Area Bill, 2021 into the NSW Legislative Council. This Bill was initiated by Bellingen conservationists with help from Australia’s best environmental legal drafters. The Bill stands a chance of passing the MLC if bipartisan support is afforded by the Labor Opposition, a few government MPs crossing the floor and help from the independents. Currently NSW Labor and the Coalition Government do not support the Great Koala National Park, but the proposal has widespread support from MPs in both major Parties, so there is hope.
The Bill would need to pass both the Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly to be gazetted but during the November 2021 COP26 meeting in Glasgow there was a commitment given in the ‘Glasgow Leader’s Declaration on Forests and Land Use’, signed by 105 countries including Australia, ‘to working collectively to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030. This declaration provides another opportunity for NSW to show its national and international leadership to tackle both the biodiversity crisis and to implement meaningful actions to tackle climate change. Declaring the Great Koala National Park would achieve both and costs little.
If our Koala are to receive this early Christmas present and the employment and economic boost this announcement would bring to the mid north coast region it needs our Members of Parliament to back it. A friendly call to your local Member of Parliament is always a good thing to do to remind representatives about what their community want to see them support. Give it a go or write to your MP, use the points below to support your message.
Kevin Evans, President of the Coffs Coast Branch of the National Parks Association.
The Great Koala Protected Area Bill, 2021 will be introduced in NSW Parliament on November 18.
The Greens Bill to create the Great Koala National Park will be introduced to the NSW Legislative Council on November 18. We are asking for people to write a letter to their local MP and or The Hon. Matt Kean, MP, Treasurer and Minister for the Environment. Contact details are easily found on the NSW Parliamentary website.
Our Members of Parliament don’t receive letters very often. Most correspondence to them is via email these days and is easily lost/missed amongst an MPs big inboxes. However, our intel suggests that the rarity of ‘old fashioned letters” means it may be noticed, read and in all likelihood respond to it!
To help you could consider using some of the following points or adapt for your style of writing:
The Great Koala Protected Area Bill, 2021
The future of the koala is of great concern to me, especially the remaining populations along the mid north coast. I would like to see governments protect our Koala in the wild for future generations.
The Great Koala Protected Area Bill, 2021 will be introduced into the NSW Legislative Council to do just that, and we seek your support to vote for this vital conservation legislation.
An opportunity for NSW to show leadership on native forest protection
During the November 2021 COP26 meeting in Glasgow there was a commitment given in the ‘Glasgow Leader’s Declaration on Forests and Land Use’, signed by 105 countries including Australia, ‘to working collectively to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030. This declaration provides another opportunity for NSW to show its national and international leadership to tackle both the biodiversity crisis and to implement meaningful actions to tackle climate change. The NSW Parliament could achieve this by ending native forest logging in NSW, and investing in an expansion of forest protected areas like this Bill to create the Great Koala National Park.
Why support this Bill?
Because the koala is at serious risk of extinction, due to habitat loss. Forest protection and expansion can be an affordable way to tackle protect Koala habitat and tackle the climate crisis.
Between 1990 and 2010 Koala numbers dropped by a third. The following decade saw rapid habitat destruction and erosion of protections including the repeal of the native Vegetation Act which resulted in a rapid loss of core koala habitat. Their numbers were then further decimated by the devastating Black Summer bushfires which killed at least 5,000 and burned 28 percent of their habitat in northern New South Wales and 21 percent in southern New South Wales.
Last year a NSW parliamentary inquiry found that without serious intervention, koalas could become extinct in this state by 2050. All experts agree that the key intervention needed is habitat protection.
Logging in core Koala habitat proceeds based on pre-bushfire plans and approvals despite profound changes to the landscape due to the fires and a long drought.
Protections against deforestation are being eroded including the watering down of the koala state environmental planning policy in rural areas and the introduction of the Integrated Forestry Operation Approvals.
Alarmingly logging of 140,000 hectares of forest land along the north coast which comprises of 33 percent of koala hubs has now become subject to large scale clear-felling under what is called an Intensive Harvesting Zone – almost all trees in this region will be cut down. The accumulative impacts from bushfire, drought, land clearing and development is driving the koala to extinction.
Logging and roading in koala forests has a profound and immediate negative impact on resident koalas. Logging not only removes the koala’s critical food resource, but it also destroys key elements of each animal’s home range which in turn impacts upon the social structure of the population with consequential disruption to social and breeding behaviours.
Native forestry is neither environmentally nor economically sustainable. Last financial year 54,500 hectares of native vegetation was cleared in NSW, it is past time that this was stopped. Felling our biodiverse rich forests erodes soil and water, produces greenhouse gas emissions and puts our native flora and fauna at risk from extinction. The state logs its forests at a loss with the activity heavily subsidised by government. Compare this to the plantation forestry sector which is profitable.
There have been repeated community calls for a moratorium on native forest logging to allow for an independent comprehensive scientific assessment across the entire network of native forests so that science can drive all future native forest decisions.
The scientific evidence undertaken so far by the NSW Governments Department of Planning and Environment and their related work to map koala hubs does not appear to be informing the state’s approach to save koalas from extinction.
Koala habitat in the state’s mid-north coast is especially important because it is more resilient to climate change and gives koalas a great chance of survival.
What is the solution?
The native state forests in the mid-north coast must be the focus of any strategy to save the koala as it has the largest koala population which means an end to native forest logging and greater government and private sector investment into alternative strategies for our fibre and timber requirements. This would include expanded biodiverse forest plantations, hemp and bamboo on existing cleared land. Currently 85% of Australia’s wood supply needs are met by plantations so the gap is small and easily achievable.
The Great Koala National Park proposal, would add 175,000 hectares of native state forest (this does not include plantations or private land) to existing protected areas to form a 315,000 hectare reserve in the Coffs Harbour hinterland.
What benefits would the Great Koala National Park deliver?
The proposal contains 44 percent of all koala hubs in state forests in New South Wales making a substantial contribution to ensuring the koala’s long term survival in the state.
It would link fragmented forests with high biodiversity hotspots. There would be flow-on benefits for water security, carbon sequestration and for other conservation dependant species including platypuses, greater and yellow bellied gliders, large forest owls and many aquatic organisms.
The Great Koala National Park would bring significant economic benefit to the region, with a net benefit for rural communities. Forestry jobs are declining due to mechanisation and market forces and forestry workers could be transferred into park restoration and management jobs. The wider community would benefit from increased nature based tourism from campers, bush walkers, bird watchers, mountain bikers and nature enthusiasts. With domestic tourism demand increasing in the post Covid world, many Australians will be keen to visit and proud to have such a reserve in their state.
Given that forests take up 31% of the world’s annual global carbon emissions it is vital that we retain and enhance their vital contribution to reducing atmospheric carbon and mitigating climate heating. The Great Koala National Park provides immense opportunity to transfer unsustainable logging practices into a sustainable, biodiversity hub and carbon sink that contributes to the wider community and ensures the survival of the koala and other vulnerable and threatened species into the future. It is essential that as well as stopping clearing, we actively restore forests and enhance their ability to sequester carbon. Logging has more than halved forest’s carbon storage, by stopping logging we avoid additional emissions and allow forests to sequester ever increasing volumes of carbon as they recover.
What would a transition from logging to national park look like?
With proper planning and adequate funding, the transition would likely gain strong local community and first nation people’s support to help address the stubbornly high unemployment in this region.
According to research conducted by the University of Newcastle, a NSW Government industry transition support package would be valued at $169 million over 10 years. The NSW Government would also compensate mill owners, such as Boral, up to an estimated $30 million (in 2020 dollars) to buy back wood supply agreements.
Initial capital investment for park establishment would cost $102.3 million (in nominal terms), mainly spread over the first three years. This figure includes koala habitat restoration investment in additional private property owner capital investment. Further capital investment of $42.6 million (in nominal terms) over three years, would be allocated to the construction of the multi-purpose visitor and cultural heritage centre at Pine Creek, the Bowraville Visitor Centre and various bushwalking, horse riding and mountain biking networks.
There is a smarter way to manage our publicly owned native state forests, one that would support koala conservation and grow the economies of rural communities. The Great Koala National Park proposal would deliver 9,000+ jobs for the Coffs Coast, and generate $2.8 billion in value for the nation according to an analysis of the proposal by the University of Newcastle.
The New South Wales Government has a target to double the number of koalas in the state by 2050. This will not be possible without protecting their habitat and the Great Koala National Park will ensure that occurs.
National parks are the cornerstone of biodiversity conservation and creating new parks are one of the most important actions we can take to save our rapidly eroding biodiversity. National park and wilderness declarations have stalled under this government and we are far from achieving our Aichi targets of protecting 17 percent of land. The time for a bold new national park is overdue.
What are other States doing planning for their native forests?
The WA and Victoria Governments have recently declared their intention to end native forest logging and invest in a rapid expansion of plantations both hardwood and softwood. ACT, Queensland and South Australia do not log their native forests. This would leave only Tasmania and NSW logging their native forests unless we act to now to end native forest logging by 2023.
We call on the government and all members of the house to support the Great Koala Protected Area Bill, 2021 which would create a new national park on the mid-north coast as a natural legacy you can be proud to have supported.