Koala protection policy warned of being ineffective.

The 2020 Australian bushfires greatly decreased koala population.A report released June 30 by the New South Wales parliament estimates that the bushfires killed at least 5,000 koalas—as much as a third of the state population—and that the fires destroyed 24 percent of koala habitat on public lands. It concluded that koalas in the state face extinction by 2050. New South Wales has roughly 10 percent of Australia’s total koala population, though estimates of state and national numbers vary because of a lack of surveys. A 2016 study pegged the number at 329,000 koalas nationwide.

On 8 March 2021, the NSW Liberal and National parties announced they had agreed to new rules for koala protection after a dispute over koala policy last year threatened to split the Coalition. Under the changes, rural land zoned for primary production or private forestry will be carved out from a new koala state environmental planning policy (“Sepp”) that will come into force later this year. The Government has said that the new Sepp would apply to land on which more than 95% of development applications were made.

However, core rural zones in some areas would be made exempt from the policy once new local land services and private native forestry codes are developed over the next month. This will effectively exempt most rural zones within Sydney, the Blue Mountains and the Central Coast.

The NSW Greens pointed to documents released through a parliamentary call for papers last year in which Rob Stokes, the Planning Minister, warned that exempting rural lands could make the new koala protections ineffective. He said removing rural zoned land from the policy would, on average, lead to more than 80% of the land in each local government area covered by the existing policy being excluded.

Stokes commented: -

“The Sepp would be ineffective if it only applied to a small portion of land in each [local government area],”

The Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann said:

“How can the premier save koalas from extinction when her government’s signature policy will now not cover most of the state?”

Under the revised policy, rural zoned lands in regional NSW will continue to be covered by an old koala policy – known as Sepp 44 – that was developed in 1995 until the new local land service and private native forestry codes are developed. 

It is very disheartening to read that after a year of negotiation and arguments within the NSW Coalition, the new rules still cannot save koalas from extinction because the policy may not even cover most of the state, and there is no clear forestry code that adequately protect koalas.

With koalas being one of the most iconic species in Australia, all parties are responsible to protect these animals from harm, but it has unfortunately turned into a political war, rather than an agreement to protect a national icon.

Courtesy of Kelly Ma

Main Source: The Guardian