The Great Koala National Park
Petitioner:
Paula Flack
| Member:
Smith, Tamara
| No. of Signatories:
2,357
| Date closed:
11/04/2023
To the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly,
We draw your attention to the significant decline in the NSW Koala population. There were an estimated 54,000 wild koalas in NSW in 2012, by 2016 the NSW Chief Scientist estimated only 36,000 were left.
The 2019/20 bushfires destroyed over a quarter of remaining prime Koala habitat in northeast NSW and killed approximately 10,000 koalas in NSW. Many koala populations are now on the verge of collapse.
The 2020 NSW Upper House Koala inquiry found that NSW koalas will become extinct before 2050 without urgent government intervention. Habitat loss and fragmentation through logging, land clearing and bushfires, are the primary cause of the koala’s decline.
Koalas in NSW are now listed as Endangered. The only way to prevent their predicted extinction is to stop the loss of koala habitat by protecting it in perpetuity.
The Great Koala National Park (GKNP) would protect an estimated 20% of NSW’s remaining koalas. It would also generate significant regional economic benefits through nature-based tourism and is well supported by the community.
Current industrial scale logging in State Forests within the proposed GKNP is destroying the very habitat critical to ensuring Koala survival.
We respectfully request that:
1. A moratorium be placed on all logging of public native forest within the National Parks Association of NSW’s proposed Great Koala National Park.
2. That koalas be protected for future generations by immediately creating The Great Koala National Park as proposed by the National Parks Association of NSW.
