NSW Upper House Inquiry into the Long Term Sustainability and Future of the Timber and Forest Products Industry

Recently NPA was invited to showcase the GKNP to the Upper House MPs on the Committee inquiring into the sustainability of the timber and forest products industry in NSW, when the

Inquiry came to Coffs Harbour for its final hearing. Of course, we jumped at the opportunity. Campaign Coordinator Paula Flack and NPA NSW EO Gary Dunnett spent the morning talking to MPs about the unsustainability of current logging practices in public native forests in NSW and in particular, in the Coffs Coast region where we propose the Great Koala National Park.

MPs were shown areas in Pine Creek State Forests, home to one of the most significant koala populations left in NSW and the ‘hub’ of the GKNP proposal. They also heard compelling stories of forest mismanagement and impacts to koala habitat from locals John Pile and Anne Coyle who have been monitoring and researching the Pine Creek koala population for many years.

Let’s hope our input will go some way to convincing the committee that stopping logging of public native forests and creating the GKNP is not only critical to saving our precious koalas and other forest dependant threatened species, but it is also an economically and environmentally sustainable use of our natural asset unlike the current industrial scale clear- fell logging.

NPA also hosted a forum on the GKNP in Coffs Harbour the evening before the inquiry hearing which attracted over 100 attendees and provided an opportunity for federal election candidates to state their positions on the GKNP proposal.