Tag Archives: koala habitat

Christmas comes early for NSW koala colony thanks to community work

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THE NSW GOVERNMENT has announced the purchase of 194 hectares of prime koala habitat located adjacent to the Lake Innes Nature Reserve, south-west of Port Macquarie. The purchase is funded as a joint initiative and only possible through the generous contribution of $3.5 million from Koala Conservation Australia (KCA) as well as from the NSW Government’s landmark $193 million dollar investment in koala conservation.

Environment Minister Matt Kean said the purchase will protect core koala habitat of strategic importance in the Port Macquarie region which will help us reach our target of doubling the koala population by 2050.

“There has been sustained community advocacy to see this land purchased, and I want to pay particular tribute to the local member Leslie Williams and the KCA who have been instrumental in making this happen, their work will leave an enduring legacy for the community for generations to come,” Mr Kean said.

“Our iconic koalas are increasingly threatened by the loss and fragmentation of habitat, this purchase will protect critical habitat from development and ensure the koala population in this area is safeguarded forever.”

“Our plan is to add this purchase to Lake Innes Nature Reserve and declare it an Asset of Intergenerational Significance, which will provide the highest possible protections to this critically important population in perpetuity.”

Member for Port Macquarie Leslie Williams said this is a victory for the many advocates in the local community who have fought so hard for this result.

“The conservation of koalas on this land will be boosted by an ongoing partnership between the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and KCA – a great demonstration of what can be achieved when government works closely with the community.”

“It’s such welcome news here in the Port Macquarie region that the NSW Government has recognised the significance of this land through our passionate local community campaign,” Mrs Williams said.

“Our koala population here in Port Macquarie is beloved – a key part of our community’s identity, their conservation helps to support the tourism economy attracting tourists who want to enjoy the magic of seeing a koala in the wild.” she said.

“Most importantly, our community has the surety of knowing their children for generations to come will see koalas in the wild, which is cause for celebration.”

Chairperson of Koala Conservation Australia Sue Ashton said they are delighted that this purchase is finally being made a reality.

“This is a huge win for the koala population in the Port Macquarie region and will play a critical role in helping the population recover after the terrible Black Summer bushfires,” Mrs Ashton said.

“KCA is very pleased to partner with the NSW Government to secure this lasting legacy for one of our most iconic species.”

As well as the koala, three additional threatened species (eastern coastal free-tailed bat, glossy black cockatoo and grey-headed flying-fox) have been recorded on the property.

It is expected more will be found through survey effort, noting another 44 threatened species that may use habitat on the land have been recorded within a two-kilometre radius of the property.

Port Macquarie is an iconic area for koalas and the local community has strong association with koalas. The Koala (Guula) is a totem animal to the Birpai people and maintaining this population is of great cultural and spiritual importance to contemporary Birpai families.

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Housing development refused after (NSW) Mid North Coast Council raises koala concerns

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By Kerrin Thomas, ABC Mid North Coast. 27 July 2020.

A HOUSING DEVELOPMENT refused by Mid Coast Council on the grounds it failed to address koala protection issues has also lost an appeal to the Land and Environment Court.

The applicants wanted to build six single-storey units on a site between Gollan Avenue and Beecher Street at Tinonee, near Taree, on the NSW Mid North Coast.

Despite a recommendation from staff that it be approved, MidCoast councillors refused the development with a vote of seven to two, citing reasons including a failure to adequately address koala protection issues.

That refusal was contested in the Land and Environment Court, which also dismissed the appeal.

In her judgement, Commissioner Sarah Bish described the site as mostly grass, with “a few mature trees scattered across the site”.

… CONTINUE READING

 

PICTURED: An ecologist for Mid Coast Council found evidence of koalas in a tree on the site of the development, according to the court judgement. (Supplied: Pat Durman)

 

 

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UPDATE: Save Mt Lofty (koala habitat) Toowoomba, Qld.

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It’s not quite over yet folks, stay tuned

I’m Penny and I wrote the Mt Lofty koala petition — thank you for sharing it. In response to your query, this is the story!

What happened:

DHA said that they had withdrawn their Masterplan for 342 houses.

This turned out to be sort-of true.

They have ditched the big development, but they did not withdraw their plan. They have kept it current under the same development assessment number. This means that they can submit a new plan without going to the public and submissions are disallowed.

We have approached council re[garding] this and asked that any new plans must be go out to submission.

However, DHA has stated that they will put forward a much smaller development and that they won’t clear all/most of the critical koala habitat. So yes, it is a win. But it also depends what they do next … so we are keeping a good eye on them!

— Cheers, Penny. 16 April 2020

UPDATE: Toowoomba koala habitat Mt Lofty

A big hello to all our wonderful supporters!

Mt-Lofty-reprieve-Feb2020Today we woke up to this headline on the front cover of our local paper: DHA Ditches Mt. Lofty Plan. 

342 houses will no longer be built on this precious land. There is still some way to go on this, as all this really means is that the original plan has been withdrawn. It remains to be seen what will emerge in its place. However, it’s a win and we are celebrating (we like to think the koalas are too, in their own secret way).

This petition shone a light onto our little neck of the woods, onto our koalas, onto our beautiful forested land with its creeks and waterfall, with its mists and endless views. We could NOT have done this without all the people, from all around our bruised planet, who cared enough to support us.

Let’s take strength from this and keep on fighting. Lets show the greedy, the thoughtless, the uncaring and powerful that we mean business. We fight. We don’t stop.

THANK YOU!

— The Save Mt. Lofty Inc Team, 21 February 2020

Petition to local council, ask state and federal officials to say NO.

Mount Lofty is a very special place, right on the edge of the Toowoomba Escarpment. It’s a place of forests, permanent springs and Toowoomba’s only waterfall.

We, the Mt. Lofty community, see and hear koalas here all the time. Malcolm and Belle have a special place in our hearts because they’re breeding right now. We want to see little baby koalas here. Australia needs that to happen very, very badly.

It’s not just koalas either. There are lots of other animals here too, such as echidnas, wallabies, kangaroos, goannas, small mammals, bats, reptiles and frogs. The bird life is amazing.

But that’s about to change.

This land has escaped the developers only because it’s an ex-Rifle Range and has been owned by the Department of Defence for over 100 years.

But now our Federal government wants to clear all the land that’s flat enough to build on, including 38 hectares (that’s 76 football fields) of Critical Koala Habitat. They’ll bulldoze the forest and cram the bare dirt with 342 houses and villas, on blocks down to 300m2.

Few of these houses are for the Defence force. An independent consultant says most of them will go to investors and second home-owners.

They even want their own special planning code so they can get away with it.

It’s not too late though!

Right now, the Toowoomba Regional Councillors have this application sitting on their desks. They have the environmental grounds in the planning code to reject this development and save the koalas, and all the animals, on this land.

The community has been fighting this for over two years now. Time is running out — the decision could come any time within the next few months.

Please tell the people doing this that we just cannot keep on this way. We have lost over a billion animals in the fires. Koalas are slow and many of them were burned to death.

We cannot afford to lose more animals, especially when this land was never paid for and doesn’t have to be destroyed for one-off financial gain.

MORE INFORMATION; PETITION HERE

 

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Koala habitat being cleared, mined and “developed”, with impotent environmental protection laws

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Almost all the Australians are aware of the Koalas existence and they associate Koalas as one of the most native animals. We consider Koalas to be one of the national symbols of Australia, along with Kangaroos.  They are iconic animals.

The koala is featured in the Dreamtime stories and mythology of indigenous Australians. The Tharawal people believed that the animal helped row the boat that brought them to the continent.  In 2012, the Australian government listed koala populations in Queensland and New South Wales as Vulnerable, because of a 40% population decline in the former and a 33% decline in the latter.  In this light, protection of koala habitats should have been UPGRADED, not loosened!

Now, it seems that koalas in Queensland are simply “green tape” prohibiting the advancement of industries on their land!

The koala’s territory is getting smaller because people are cutting down trees and making farms on them.

A gas company has been given federal approval to clear 54 hectares of critical koala habitat for new coal seam gas wells on Queensland’s Western Downs.

QGC, which is owned by Shell, applied to drill 25 new wells near Dalby as part of project Anya. Four Corners reveals how several leading vets and wildlife organisations say high-rise developments up and down the eastern coastline are culling the koala population.

“While the identified koala habitat values within [the site] is considered to be in good condition, the very low density of koalas combined with large home ranges within a geographically extensive intact remnant, will result in “no significant impact”,” the report read.

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(image: CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29524856)

Wilderness Society Queensland Campaign Manager Gemma Plesman said: “It’s outrageous that the [Malcolm] Turnbull Government would approve clearing more of their habitat when it is a threatened species supposedly protected by Federal law.

“Koala populations in south-east Queensland are feeling the crunch. Their homes are being torn up from urban development, industrial scale agriculture and, as we’re seeing here, mining.”

Ms Tabart Chief Executive of the Koala Foundation said the federal environmental act had failed koalas in Queensland.  Numbers of the iconic animal have been depleted in Queensland in recent years in large part due to lax land clearing laws and little government oversight to protect habitats.  Australia Koala Foundation chief executive Deborah Tabart described koalas in the region of southeast Queensland as “functionally extinct” and said the whole system of wildlife protection was broken.

“The Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act in my view has been a complete waste of time to protect koala habitat,” she said.

“An area of 187 hectares within QGC’s biodiversity property in central Queensland will be set aside to offset any potential loss of habitat.” But Ms Tabart said that was pointless.

“You get up to 70 and 80 per cent mortality once you move animals away from their homes,” she said.  You can’t just “offset” habitat. 

Under pressure from big business Federal, State and Territory governments are moving forward with an aggressive plan to wind back our environmental protection laws. By cutting ‘green tape’, handing important federal approval powers to the states, and fast tracking approvals for large development, federal protection for our most special places and wildlife will be removed, and mining and other destructive development in our forests, woodlands and along our coasts will be accelerated.

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(image: http://www.youyangsregion.org/tourism-region/koala-tourism)

In another attack on our native icons, koalas,a Chinese property developer closely connected to a mayor in southeast Queensland has secured approvals to build a $750 million resort in a koala habitat that the state government has said it will not oppose.  Why are foreigners able to “develop” our land, anyway? Would Australians be building a resort over Panda habitat?

The above approval by Logan council, which is expected to deliver massive windfalls to developer Liansheng Yue after he bought the farmland for $843,000 in 2009, was granted despite 28 of 29 public submissions received by council opposed to the project.  What’s windfall for the developer, is a permanent tragedy our nation, being cleared of native animals.

Koalas are facing death by a thousand cuts, and legislation that protects big businesses and corporations, just obliterating any environmental laws that protect our native animals. Where is our “Environment” Minister, and environmental protection laws? They don’t exist if they can just be over-ridden.

Unless we stop the bulldozers, the koala will go extinct in Queensland.  Extinction is a process, not an event.  Australia’s reputation as being famous for fast-tracked native animal extinctions must end.

 

 

This was sent via email to Dr Steven Miles is the Minister for Environment and Heritage Protection and Minister for National Parks and the Great Barrier Reef.  Steven has a PhD in Political Science and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Journalism from the University of Queensland.  Note: NO environmental, ecological or zoology credentials at all!

 

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Petition:Protect koala habitat in an effort to better ensure koalas will not die off.

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Koalas are declining in rapid numbers because the trees where they spend a majority of their time are being quickly chopped down.

Roads are being built where there were once trees, increasing the risk that the animals will be hit by cars. In addition, when houses are built in place of the trees that once covered the particular land, the animals are in greater danger of being attacked by the dogs of the people who now live in the newly built houses.
Cutest_Koala

Up here in Queensland and New South Wales, they’ve got koalas that are declining rapidly, population’s dropping off the face of the Earth right on their doorstep and we’re not able to do anything about it, seemingly. In South East Queensland, the human population is increasing by more than 1000 people a week. This rapid population growth and increased need for houses is placing considerable pressure on the limited remaining koala habitat.

Currently, about 80 percent of the koalas’ habitat is almost completely ruined due to human encroachment. Only a small portion of this land is now protected. This is ironic when one considers that the koala is a protected species. Yet, because the koala’s habitat is constantly being destroyed, about 4,000 of these animals are killed by cars and dogs every year.

The human population of the narrow strip between Noosa and the Gold Coast – South East Queensland’s “200km city” – will swell by 2.2 million to 5.5 million in 30 years. It’s all part of the “big Australia” policy! That extra development will finally get rid of koalas in SE Queensland, something governments been working very hard to achieve for decades. Massive immigration coupled with a PM who doles out infrastructure funding not on need but only to those who follow his radical political ideology on asset sales.

Urge officials to protect larger areas of the eucalyptus forests where these animals live in order to help save them. If we don’t do something now, koalas may soon have no place in the wild that solely belongs just to them.

Sign the Petition

The Redlands koala population, estimated in 1999 to be 6,200 animals, has plummeted by approximately 75% (in 15 years). The koala was recently listed by your government as ‘vulnerable’ in Queensland with South East Qld suffering the greatest loss of koala numbers.
Habitat loss (to property developers and infrastructure) is the greatest threat to the koala’s survival followed by disease, vehicle strikes and domestic dog attacks.

On Line Petition to save koalas in the southern area of Redlands

Since European settlement, hundreds of species have become extinct in Australia, including at least 50 bird and mammal, 4 frog and more than 60 plant species. It is likely that other species have disappeared but without our knowledge. Many other species are considered to be threatened and are listed under Australian Government legislation as endangered or vulnerable. More than 310 species of native animals and over 1180 species of native plants are at risk of disappearing forever.

As long ago as 1994 the Australian Academy of Sciences advocated a maximum population for Australia of 24 million, a figure we are fast approaching and will soon exceed. In 2010 the National Institute of Labour Studies at Flinders University looked at different levels of net overseas migration – from zero up to 260,000 p.a. – and found that all levels lead to worryingly unsustainable positions, which worsen the higher the levels become.

(featured image: koala dead at Redlands- Queensland government)

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Stop the West Byron mega-development:Petition

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This project will overwhelm Byron. It is a massive 108 hectare estate that will increase the current population of Byron Bay – 9,000 people – by 25-30%.

Byron already has major traffic problems. It’s an area of low employment because jobs are few and there is no infrastructure in place to support this kind of growth. We want people to visit Byron and not get stuck in traffic jams all year round.

This project has been taken out of the hands of Byron Council (who recommended against rezoning the land for development) because it is a “major project”. The developers of the site are requesting that the Department of Planning and Infrastructure rezone the land so they can go ahead with this mammoth project

The area is also key koala habitat that if destroyed will mean the decimation of our beloved and shrinking koala population. There is no plan of management for Koala Habitat Protection as required by State Environment Planning Policy.

Three-quarters of the site has acid sulphate soils which become toxic when drained.

Byron is unique among NSW’s coastal towns and its character is what brings people here. If that essential small-town relaxed community feel goes and is replaced by yet another Gold Coast-style over-developed crowded mess then everyone loses – visitors, business operators and residents.

Unfortunately koalas have faced a number of threats to their survival which has resulted in significant declines to their population across their range. This decline has resulted in the listing of koalas as a Vulnerable species under both the NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 and Federal Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. One of their biggest threats is urbanisation!

Don Page, you’re our local member. Please stop the despoiling of Byron Bay now!

https://www.change.org/p/don-page-stop-the-west-byron-mega-development

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