Ending Government Koala Propaganda

NEFA has written to Environment Minister Penny Sharpe after pre-publication release of a paper on a long-term Koala study by Dr. Andrew Smith and John Pile at Pine Creek that provides more proof that the NSW Natural Resources Commission’s (NRC) claims that logging has no impact on Koalas are based on false assumptions. The paper identifies that male Koalas wander widely, often calling from low quality habitat, whereas breeding females are mostly restricted to high quality habitat with high diversities and densities of larger feed trees, meaning that relying on recordings of male Koalas to assess distribution and impacts on Koalas, as the NRC does, gives misleading results (see also). This paper reinforces the urgent need for the NSW Government to urgently reconsider its fundamentally flawed Koala strategy and grossly inadequate logging rules for Koalas. It also exemplifies the need to disband or reform the NRC due to their bias and failure to provide Koalas with the protection they urgently require.

Internal Government documents show that the EPA share many of NEFA's concerns about the logging rules for Koalas and the bias of the NRC. They also show that since at least May 2023 the EPA negotiated with the Forestry Corporation to make relatively minor amendments to the logging rules (CIFOA Protocols) to provide minimal increased legal protection for Koalas within the Great Koala National Park. Final agreement to proceed with the legal changes was abandoned at the last minute after consultation with the Ministers on the 25 July. Instead on 4 August the EPA’s Tony Chappel wrote to FCNSW’s Anshul Chaudhary detailing proposed legally-unenforceable voluntary measures, most of which Chaudhary refused to accept (even though they had apparently previously been agreed to).

NEFA have once again implored Penny Sharpe to show she cares about Koalas by stopping the Government's blatant propaganda and take urgent action to stop the Forestry Corporation logging important Koala habitat on State forests. We reiterated our request of 5 July for State Forests:

1. urgently re-instate the requirement for thorough pre-logging Koala surveys, this time undertaken by independent experts
2. exclude logging from, and rehabilitate, the most important habitat for Koalas, including:
   1. areas with high Koala usage, including home ranges
   2. patches with relatively high densities and diversities of Preferred Koala Feed Trees
   3. likely refugia from the impacts of climate change, including droughts, heatwaves and wildfires.
3. protect mature (>30 cm DBH) Preferred Koala Feed Trees in potential and linking habitat.

Protecting the Southern Richmond

For over a decade NEFA have been trying to protect the Banyabba Area of Regional Koala Significance in the southern Richmond River catchment in north east NSW, Australia. Now we have undertaken an assessment of the conservation values across the area and are recommending 56,200 hectares of native vegetation on State forests in the southern Richmond River catchment and on the southern Richmond Range for protection. These forests encompass the largest area of high quality Koala habitat with potential for long-term viability in the Richmond catchment, with half identified by the Commonwealth as priorities for reservation as Nationally Important Koala Areas. Three years ago NEFA prepared a detailed proposal for 7,000 ha of this area to be made into the Sandy Creek Koala Park. This proposal takes a broader view.

See Protecting the Southern Richmond

Logging Koalas to Extinction

An assessment by the North East Forest Alliance found the Forestry Corporation’s May 2023 12 month Plan of Logging Operations for the NSW north coast includes 41,000 ha of Nationally Important Koala Areas and 2,716 ha of Koala Hubs. Both Governments have undertaken assessments to identify the most important Koala habitat for protection, and yet they have allowed the Forestry Corporation to go on logging these habitats without any changes to the inadequate 2018 logging rules, even in areas where Koalas were decimated by the 2019/20 wildfires. If our governments were genuine about saving north coast Koalas then they would immediately protect the 234,000 ha of Nationally Important Koala Areas and 15,000 ha of Koala Hubs they identified on State forests.

See the report Logging Koalas to Extinction

Koalas don't like logging

NSW DPI Forestry recently had published a paper by Law et. al. (2022) titled ‘Regulated timber harvesting does not reduce koala density in north-east forests of New South Wales’ which used male Koala recordings from song-meters to assess the impacts of logging on Koalas in 3 State Forests in the north-east NSW, claiming “There was no significant effect of selective harvesting on density and little change evident between years”. These findings are now being relied upon by the NSW Koala Strategy and the Koala Recovery Plan to claim that logging has no impact on Koalas and therefore there is no need to protect Koala habitat from logging.

NEFA recently completed a review of the paper, concluding:

While this review of the data is limited to that presented in Law et. al. (2022), it shows that there were large decreases in male Koala calling activity across recently logged areas and a large increase in areas with no or minimal calling activity, suggesting that Law et. al.‘s (2022) conclusions are invalid and logging appears to have had a large impact. Averaged across the forests actually logged in 2020 within the 3 State Forests assessed by Law et. al. (2022) from the extreme drought in Spring 2019 to Spring 2020 there appears to have been around a 23% decline in areas with relatively high male Koala calling frequency (hot spots), a 27% decrease in areas with moderate calling frequency and a 36% increase in areas of no or very low male Koala calling frequency. This is despite the breaking of the drought.

Two of the 3 previously logged National Parks used as controls by Law et. al. (2022) indicate there was a consistent persistence of high Koala call frequency sites (hotspots) between years suggesting stable breeding colonies, whereas in the recently logged forests the smaller calling hotspots were highly variable between years suggesting unstable populations, supporting the concern that that logged forests may constitute sink habitat where mortality exceeds reproduction.

The impression gained from this review is of unstable Koala colonies in logged forests, declining as mature feed trees are progressively removed, at risk of collapse from the combination of logging, drought and fire. The assumptions and conclusions of the study by DPI Forestry (Law et. al. 2022) misrepresent the threat to the ongoing survival of Koalas, and is therefore a threat itself. The data collected needs a full reassessment and critical review by independent experts.

Read NEFA's Review Here

NSW KOALA STRATEGY RELEASED

On Saturday 9 April 2022 the NSW Koala Strategy was released as the first 5 year stage of a goal to double NSW Koala populations by 2050, with an allocation of $193.3 million for the next 5 years. The strategy is set to fail because it does not fulfill the most fundamental requirement of stopping existing Koala habitat from being cleared and degraded, and lacks a strategic approach to identify the highest priority lands for protection and revegetation.

The $107.1 million allocated in the Strategy for habitat protection and restoration is intended to protect just 22,000 ha of Koala habitat, and create 25,000 ha of new habitat, on private lands. It would be far more cost-effective to allocate this funding as an industry transition strategy, enabling the protection from logging of 2 million ha of native forest on State forests, including over 287,000 of existing medium-high quality Koala habitat encompassing 20,000ha of “Koala Hubs”. If there was a genuine intent to save Koalas the Government would not ignore State forests.

Throwing money around in a piecemeal fashion for private lands will not compensate for the Liberal’s promises to the Nationals, as peace terms in the 2020 Koala Wars, to remove the requirement to obtain permission before clearing core Koala habitat, to end the prohibition on logging core Koala habitat, to open up all environmental zones for logging, and to stop core Koala habitat being added to environmental zones. None of this is mentioned or accounted for in the Strategy.

While it is good to see funds being directed to Koala conservation, what we need most is immediate protection of core Koala habitat and linkages on public lands, and the mapping of core habitat and linkages on private lands to enable the most effective targeting of regulatory instruments and funding to protect it.

Read NEFA's review here.

FEDERAL INTERVENTION REQUESTED FOR RICHMOND RIVER KOALAS

Within the Federal electorate of Page it is evident the Spotted Gum forests of the Richmond River lowlands, with their extensive stands of Koala feed trees (particularly Grey Gum, Grey Box, and various Red Gums), are a priority area for Koala conservation with the capacity to support a viable population of Koalas, with great potential for population-level recovery from the wildfires and logging.

Unfortunately, the 2019 fires left this Koala population in a highly vulnerable state, which is currently being aggravated by logging of priority koala habitat on State Forests in accordance with North East NSW Regional Forest Agreement signed by Prime Minister Scott Morrison in 2018.

In light of the Commonwealth’s listing of Koala (combined populations of Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory) as Endangered, and the identification in the Conservation Advice as urgent (a) increasing the total area of protected, connected quality koala habitat in priority areas, and (b) reviewing statutory planning instruments to avoid or minimise impacts of land management on koalas, NEFA have written to the member for Page, Kevin Hogan, requesting he:

1. Make urgent representations to Environment Minister Susan Ley to engage independent experts to review NEFA’s proposed Sandy Creek Koala Park and identify other priority koala habitat within the Northern Rivers for incorporation into state protected areas.
2. Make urgent representations to Prime Minister Scott Morrison to modify the North East NSW Regional Forest Agreement to require:
   • pre-logging surveys by independent experts to identify koala habitat prior to logging commencing, and
   • protection of identified Koala habitat to retain the quality food and shelter trees needed to meet their daily energetic requirements

See letter to Hogan here.

NRC Koala response to harvesting in NSW north coast state forests

The Natural Resources Commission (NRC) have released their final report “Koala response to harvesting in NSW north coast state forests”. Their claims that logging has no impacts on koalas are considered to be based on invalid extrapolations of coarse data and selective use of results to justify not rectifying obvious inadequacies in the Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approval (CIFOA) and Private Native Forestry Code of Practice. It is ludicrous to claim that logging of Koala feed trees will have no impacts upon them.

It is particularly concerning that the NRC have not reconsidered their decision to over-ride the advice of the EPA and the government’s Expert Fauna Panel that minimum retentions of Koala feed trees should be 15-25 feed trees/ha >25cm diameter at breast height (dbh) in modelled habitat. Their reduction of retentions to 5-10 feed trees/ha and sizes to 20 cm dbh is not supported by this study. It is also obvious that the requirements need to be changed to add Flooded Gum as a feed tree and Turpentine as a roost tree. Their inaction on rectifying these failings is irresponsible.

Read NEFA's detailed response here.

Demystifying Koala SEPP 2021 - NEFA Webinar

On Thursday 22nd April NEFA hosted its first public webinar, Demystifying Koala SEPP 2021. We invited every councillor from the 14 NE NSW LGAs between Tweed & Armidale.

We had over 100 attendees on the day making the most of the opportunity to hear from 4 leading experts on the issues involved in this regulatory attack by the NSW Berejiklian government on our koalas and councils. They heard from our very own Dailan Pugh, Bellingen Mayor Dom King, Ecologist Steve Phillips and EDO Senior Solicitor Carrin Loane. 

Many people have asked if they can review the video of the event and the answer is YES you can see it all and share it around on Facebook by following this link (please Like, Comment and Share)

If you want to know what councillors can do to help, or would like to let them know, here's a few starting points:

You can download this image for sharing via here. 

How to Extinct Koalas

Dailan Pugh, March 2021.

The Koala Wars erupted between the National and Liberal Parties last September, while the Nationals are claiming victory over the Liberals, it is the loggers that have prevailed over koalas and local councils. 

Ironically the National’s declaration of war came after the bipartisan inquiry into ‘Koala populations and habitat in NSW’ released their findings in June 2020 that the regulatory framework for private native forestry does not protect koala habitat on private land, and that without urgent government intervention to protect habitat the koala will become extinct in New South Wales before 2050.

This appeared to inflame the debate about State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) Koala Habitat Protection 2019, which applied to private forests, home to more than 60% of NSW’s koalas.  In early September the Nationals threatened to cross the floor unless the Liberal’s agreed to their demands to weaken protections for koalas. The Liberals surrendered.

The inquiry reaffirmed that fragmentation and loss of habitat poses the most serious threat to koalas in NSW. 

We’ve known for decades that if we want koalas to survive, we first need to protect where they live. 

Back in 1995 a Coalition Government even adopted a policy to achieve this - State Environmental Planning Policy 44 (SEPP 44). It required Councils to prepare Koala Plans of Management (KPoMs) to identify where they live, termed “core koala habitat”, and to protect it in environmental zones.

SEPP 44 had a fundamental flaw because it only allowed forests comprised of 15% of 10 feed tree species to be identified as core koala habitat, leaving dozens of key feed trees out, meaning vast areas of core koala habitat didn’t qualify.

The Local Land Services Act relied upon this mapped core koala habitat to meet its obligations to protect koalas, by prohibiting logging of core koala habitat and generally requiring consent before it can be cleared.

A combination of lack of political will and an intent to make SEPP 44 ineffective, coupled with the difficulty and expense for Councils to prepare plans, made SEPP 44 a policy failure.

By 2020 only 6 KPoMs had been approved, mostly covering just parts of Council areas, with just 5-7,000 ha of core koala habitat identified for protection, after 25 years. And most of this had pre-existing logging approvals that were allowed to continue. Another 5 finished KPoMs were still waiting for approval, Tweed and Clarence since 2015 and Byron since 2016.

After years of procrastination, in December 2019 Cabinet approved the new SEPP (Koala Habitat Protection) 2019 that, while still problematic, rectified many of the definitional problems with SEPP 44, including increasing the number of use trees from 10 to 123.

It came into effect in March 2020, when the Guidelines were released. By then the loggers were beginning to freak out because they were concerned that the new rules made it easier for Councils to identify core koala habitat, and they wouldn’t be allowed to log it.

NSW Farmers joined in as they wanted to remove constraints on land clearing. They were spooked by the map of likely koala habitat, the Koala Development Application Map, labelled the pink DA Map.  It was only intended to limit the area where development applications had to consider koalas, but some Nationals were falsely claiming it was core koala habitat that all required protection.

The key request was that the SEPP be decoupled from the Local Land Services Act, meaning that core Koala habitat identified in a KPoM would no longer have logging excluded or require consent before it was cleared.

The Liberals had repeatedly agreed to decoupling since the SEPP was adopted in 2019, but wanted the Nationals to first put forward alternative protection for koalas from logging and clearing, though they failed to.

By mid May the Government had begun the formal process of changing the SEPP and the Guidelines, with a focus on removing the pink DA Map.

The release of the koala inquiry report in late June was followed by the release of NSW’s 2018 land clearing statistics, showing that since 2016 clearing of woody vegetation had more than doubled to 60,800 ha. Most worryingly over 50% of this clearing was unexplained, meaning it was unapproved, unassessed and unknown whether it included koala habitat.

While the Nationals hadn’t managed to get the variety of feed trees contributing to core koala habitat reduced from 123 species down to an arbitrary 39, Planning Minister Rob Stokes appeared to have agreed to most of their asks.

Despite this, the Nationals declared the beginning of hostilities in early September, when first Clarence MP Chris Gulaptis and then Coffs Harbour MP Gurmesh Singh claimed they would move to the cross-benches. On 10 September the whole of the National Party piled in and made the same threat, provided they kept all their perks. The Nationals likened it to “greyhounds on steroids”, considering koalas a threat to their political survival. This was dubbed the Koala Wars.

The National’s attack was based on misinformation and lies. For example the pink DA map, and its inaccuracies, was a primary focus, even though the decision to remove it had been made 4 months previously. No wonder the Liberals were outraged.

Under the attack the Liberals surrendered, Rob Stokes amended the SEPP to narrow the definition of core koala habitat, and the Nationals were given carte-blanche to write their own Local Land Services Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill, which was introduced to the Lower House on 14 October 2020.

This was dubbed the Koala Killing Bill as it removed protection for core koala habitat on rural lands while offering no alternative protection, allowed logging to over-ride all council’s Local Environment Plans and NSW State Environmental Planning Polices, allowed some self-assessed clearing in environmental zones, and doubled logging approvals to 30 years.

It was not just about koalas, the National’s intent was to allow logging to occur in all council’s environmental zones, opening up 167,000 ha of private forests in north-east NSW where “greenie local councils” currently prohibit logging. Council’s existing consent requirements for logging over another 600,000 hectares of private forests was to be removed.

Rob Stokes reputedly also gave the Nationals a promise that councils would not be allowed to protect identified core koala habitat in environmental zones.

While the Liberals supported the Koala Killing Bill, it came to a halt in November when Upper House Liberal Catherine Cusack took a principled stand by crossing the floor and referring the bill to the Upper House Planning and Environment committee for review.

In retribution on 26 November Premier Berejiklian did a deal with the National’s leader John Barilaro to revert to SEPP 44, renamed as SEPP (Koala Habitat Protection) 2020.

To pre-empt the inquiry Planning Minister Rob Stokes and Environment Minister Matt Kean did a deal with Deputy Premier John Barilaro which was announced on 8 March 2021, without any detail. The general thrust is to resurrect most provisions of the Koala Killing Bill, including that the 87% of private lands zoned for primary production or forestry will not be subject to SEPP 2019, logging will be allowed to over-ride local environmental plans, and the Minister for Planning will take over Council’s rights to rezone rural land to an environmental zone.

This time they intend to avoid parliamentary scrutiny by implementing most of this through changes to the SEPP and ministerial directions.

On 17 March the new SEPP (Koala Habitat Protection) 2021 was made. As foreshadowed it does not apply to rural and forestry zones, which comprise 90% (2.4 million ha) of private forests in north-east NSW. The 2020 revision of SEPP 44, with its 10 feed trees and manifest problems, continues to apply to these lands.

In a significant change, KPoMs now also need to be approved by the Secretary of the Department of Regional NSW (Barilaro’s Department).

There is worse to come.

Far from being a step forward, Planning Minister Rob Stokes’ “new solution” has made the already dysfunctional SEPP process into a farce, reduced already inadequate koala protections, and opened up thousands of hectares of protected environmental zones for logging.

With core koala habitat even more difficult to identify and most of its protection about to be removed it’s the height of hypocrisy for Environment Minister Matt Kean to claim this “new solution will ensure protections for core koala habitat and colonies across NSW”.

#SaveOurKoalas Statewide Day of Action 

Join Us & #SaveOurKoalas

A new Koala SEPP just released by the NSW Govt is a huge loss in the fight to save koalas from extinction in NSW

Help stop NSW govt driving our Koalas to extinction for their logger and developer cronies

Our alliance is supporting events across our region as part of the State wide Day of Action to Save our Koalas on Sunday, 21 March 2021.

Here are the details (with links to the Facebook events) 

Please come along to as many of them as you can and share them with your networks:

• Murwillumbah (on Saturday 20th): 10am Knox Park https://fb.me/e/2mqMTuegU
• Lismore (Sun 21/3 at 11am): Rally across Brewster St from Carboot Market (near recycling depot) - Speakers include: Cindy Roberts (Widjabul Wia-bal Woman), Dailan Pugh (NEFA), Janelle Saffin (ALP), Daisy Nutty (XR), Angella Pollard (AJP) https://fb.me/e/VDp2Hmst
• Byron Bay (Sun 21/3) at The Peace Pole 2 PM https://fb.me/e/241QmQCzn
• Clarence Valley (Sun 21/3 at 12pm): Nature walk and picnic lunch at Shannon Creek Dam,  with @lionsclubofclarenceenvironmental #lawrencekoalas https://fb.me/e/26FgelcRC
• Bulga Forest (Sun 21/3 at 10am): Meet on the corner of Doyle's River Rd and Bulga/Glenwarrin Rd. From there we will travel to French's Creek Rd which is scheduled for logging later in the year to see if we can find evidence of koalas https://fb.me/e/20TnrFnbs
• Nambucca Heads (Sun 21/3 8:30am) Visitor Information Centre   https://fb.me/e/18At9NFmA
• Bellingen (21/3 at 10:30am) Lavenders bridge  https://fb.me/e/1Gx8qvj5x
• Armidale (Sun 21/3 at 1pm) Edgar Street off Arundel Drive https://fb.me/e/1glnjx8C1
• Sydney (21/3 at 11am) Hyde Park Sydney near the Archibald Fountain  https://fb.me/e/Cdh0c1nP

Please let your network know about the Day of Action, share these Facebook events and Invite your friends!

ACT TO SAVE KOALAS FROM THE NATIONAL PARTY's KOALA KILLING BILL

North East Forest Alliance, November 2020

We recently asked you to URGENTLY send an email to Liberal parliamentarians to congratulate them for standing up to National Party bullying to strip Koalas of protection on private lands. While the Liberals heard our call, they totally capitulated to the National Party and the demands of the loggers and land developers.

The Liberals altered the 2019 Koala State Environment Planning Policy (SEPP) to make it a lot harder for Councils to identify core Koala habitat. This was not enough for the Nationals, they are now in the process of altering the Local Land Services Act to remove protections for core Koala habitat from logging and broadscale clearing, prohibit Council's from requiring consent for logging and clearing in Environmental Zones, and double the length of logging approvals. This sets Koala protections back 25 years, it is a total capitulation to the loggers.

If this isn't bad enough, Premier Berejiklian is claiming this as a victory and congratulating the National Party on the outcome. It is a war, and the Koalas are losing.

KOALAS URGENTLY NEED YOU TO SPEAK UP FOR THEIR SURVIVAL

The Local Land Services Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill 2020 has passed the NSW Lower House and is likely to be voted on in the Upper House on 11 November. Parliament's servers have already crashed once due to the outcry. Every letter and phone call helps.

Can you contact parliamentarians in an effort to stop their draconian changes to the Local Land Services Act and hold them to account for their actions? They need to know we don't accept them extincting Koalas!

There will also be a variety of direct actions targeting parliamentarians on 6th November, so watch our Facebook, or come up with your own local actions.

The numbers in the NSW Upper House are currently 20 progressives to 22 potential koala killers. We have little chance of influencing their politics, but we are not without hope, here's 3 targets:

The Liberal's Ballina based Catherine Cusack was on the Koala Inquiry and urged her colleagues to stand up to National Party bullying, now she needs to be encouraged to do what she knows is right.

• Catherine Cusack (02) 9230 2915 <[email protected]>

The National's Byron Bay based Ben Franklin was on the Koala inquiry, but will likely ignore his own findings to tow the party line, he does know better.

• Ben Franklin (02) 9230 3793 < [email protected]>

While Fred Nile is committed to supporting the government, we are talking about one of god's creatures likely to become extinct in the wild by 2050.

• Fred Nile (02) 9230 2478 < [email protected]>

Priority asks are:

• Retain the requirement that core Koala habitat identified in Koala PoMs be identified as State Sensitive Regulated Land under the Local Land Services Act, with current protections from logging and broadscale clearing maintained.
• Retain the ability of Councils to prohibit, or require consent for, logging and clearing in environmental zones.
• Do not extend logging approvals from 15 to 30 years, or at the very least ensure that they are required to comply with updated and contemporary Codes of Practice that take into account new knowledge (not just those given at the time of approval).

Some others you may want to mention:

• Maintain the existing prohibition on logging in Koala habitat identified in Koala PoMs for Ballina, Coffs Harbour, Kempsey, Lismore, Bellingen and Port Stephens LGAs.
• Maintain existing classification as State Sensitive Regulated Land for core Koala habitat identified in Bellingen Shire's KPoM.
• Ensure core Koala habitat identified in Campbellown's KPoM is classed as State Sensitive Regulated Land where appropriate.
• Ensure core Koala habitat already identified in draft Koala PoMs in Port Macquarie-Hastings (Coastal, 2018), Clarence Valley (Ashby, Woombah & Iluka localities, 2015), Byron (Coastal, 2016) and Tweed (Coastal, 2015) Local Government Areas is included as State Sensitive Regulated Land, and that Councils are allowed and encouraged to include it in environmental zones (E2).

More background is provided here. 

Please contact other members as time allows.

Full parliamentary contacts are here. 

While the legislation has already passed the Lower House it is still important to let the Government know how disgusted we are, particularly:

The Hon. Gladys Berejiklian, (02) 8574 5000, Contact the Premier,

The Hon. Rob Stokes, (02) 8574 6707, Contact the Minister for Planning and Public Spaces 

The Hon. Matt Kean, (02) 8574 6150, Contact the Minister for Energy and Environment

The Hon. Geoff Provest, (07) 5523 4816, [email protected]

The Hon. Leslie Williams, (02) 6584 0977, [email protected]

The Hon. James Griffin, (02) 9976 2773, [email protected]

The Koala SEPP has already been changed:

• The Koala Development Application Map has been removed. This is the pink map the Nationals focused on and misrepresented, despite the Government deciding to remove it months ago –as the Nationals knew.

The 28 May 2020 Koala Strategy Board Meeting was informed the maps would be removed, on 21 August Stokes wrote to Barilaro that the 'Pink DA map’ would be removed and they would 'revert to a survey process which existed under SEPP 44'.

• The definition of Core Koala Habitat has been altered to only apply to “highly suitable koala habitat” where Koalas have been recorded within  the past 18 years, removing  the broader criteria “an area of land where koalas are present”.
• Councils are now required to consult with the Chief Executive Officer of Local Land Services when developing a Koala PoM

The Koala Habitat Protection Guideline has been changed:

• Landholders can ‘stop the clock’ to request an additional 60 days to object to proposed core koala habitat on their land, which has to be reassessed at Council’s expense.

If passed the Local Land Services Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill 2020 will:

• Stop core Koala habitat identified in draft and future council Koala Plans of Management from being included as Sensitive Regulated Land, and thereby require approval for broadscale clearing,
• Remove the prohibition on logging of identified core Koala habitat.
• Allow up to 6,000 ha of core Koala habitat identified as Sensitive Regulated Land in the Ballina, Coffs Harbour, Kempsey, Lismore and Port Stephens LGAs to remain, though remove 900 ha of core Koala habitat identified in the Bellingen LGA
• Stop Councils being able to include core Koala habitat in environmental protection zones.

Ben Franklin stated in parliament ”e-zones will not be created in relation to any koala plans of management”

• Create the concept of ‘allowable activity land’, which is land that at some time has been rezoned from rural zoning to environmental zoning, and permits clearing for ‘allowable activities’ (including buffers) without approval in these E zones

allowable activities include construction timber, farm forestry, gravel pits, grazing, powerlines, water and gas pipelines, fire breaks, fences, roads, tracks, sheds, tanks, dams, stockyards, bores, pumps, water points or windmills. The Government is now intending to allow clearing within 25m of property boundaries.

• Prevent local environment plans from requiring development consent for Private Native Forestry (PNF)
• Double the duration allowed for PNF plans from 15 years to 30 years.

More background is provided here. And EDO advice is here.

Feel free to reply to this email with questions or news on how you went.

Thank you for speaking up for koalas survival!

BACKGROUND:

Koala State Environment Planning Policy (SEPP) Changes

If the Powerpoint doesn't load below: you can download it here.  

Proposed Sandy Creek Koala Park

Dailan Pugh, North East Forest Alliance, August 2020

NEFA are proposing that 6,988ha of public land south-west of Casino in north-east NSW be created as the Sandy Creek Koala Park, comprised of Royal Camp, Braemar, Carwong and Ellangowan State Forests, and remnant native vegetation on land purchased for plantations. The Bandjalang clan are the recognised native title holders and so the future management of this reserve needs to be determined in consultation with them.

The genesis of this proposal was the finding of exceptional densities of Koalas at a number of localities and widespread Koala usage. The Koalas appeared to be increasing as the forests recovered from past logging, with good future prospects if the forest was allowed to age and provide increasing resources over time.

The Koalas suffered a mortal blow when the Busby's Flat fire swept through the proposal on the night of 8 October 2019, with the apparent loss of 78-89% of Koalas, which suggests the loss of 270-310 Koalas due to the fires and a surviving population that could be as low as 40-80 Koalas.

As most Koala feed trees survived the fires, Koala populations can recover over time and increase if survivors and their habitat are protected. Given the prognosis that Koalas are likely to become extinct in the wild by 2050 if we continue 'business as usual' , and the devastating impact of the 2019 fires on the Banyabba Koalas, protecting an area where Koala populations can recover is more important than ever.

You can read the full proposal by clicking this link.

On 3 March 2020 the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) approved the Forestry Corporation to undertake logging of burnt Koala habitat in three State Forests on the Richmond River lowlands. Given the failure to account for the landscape scale impacts of the fires on this Koala population, this approval was irresponsible and jeopardises the Koala's recovery, and possibly the survival of this population.

The EPA are requested to immediately withdraw their approvals for logging of Koala habitat in Bungawalbin, Doubleduke and Myrtle State Forests and do due-diligence by assessing the landscape impacts of the fires on Koalas. As shown by this example, a moratorium is needed on further logging of populations of all species significantly affected by the fires until surveys are undertaken to assess their vulnerability.

The approved logging is in parts of the 142,000 ha Banyabba Area of Regional Koala Significance (ARKS) that had 83% of its modelled 71,000 ha of 'likely' Koala habitat burnt in the 2019 wildfires, with the apparent loss of 90% of Koalas from burnt areas.

You can read the full report by clicking on this link. 

Is Logging Really Benign For Koalas as DPI Forestry Claim?

Dailan Pugh, North East Forest Alliance, March 2019.

The one survey relied upon by the timber industry to justify the ongoing logging of Koala habitat was undertaken by the forestry unit of the Department of Primary Industries, who are not independent and whose data do not justify their subjective conclusions.

There are far more robust studies that shows that Koalas are declining on State Forests and that this will be exasperated by the increased logging intensity, reduced retention of mature trees and reduced exclusions allowed by the new logging rules.

The DPI-Forestry1 survey used acoustic recorders to record male Koala calls for a week during the breeding season at 171 sites in modelled medium-high quality Koala habitat throughout northern NSW, recording one or more calls at 106 sites.

The biggest failing of the DPI-Forestry assessment is that it is based on extrapolation from just the calls of male Koalas somewhere within 300m (or more2) of the recorder, with no indication of whether other Koalas were present or whether it was just a transient male searching for a mate.

Forestry's current rules for identifying a high use Koala tree is that it has to have more than 20 Koala scats (faecal pellet) under it, and a Koala High Use Area has to have an additional 3 out of 10 trees searched with scats under them.

The only ground-truthing reported3 for Koala occupancy in the DPI-Forestry study were searches of 40 trees at each of 65 sites for Koala scats, with no scats found at 54 sites and just 1-2 scats found at 11 sites.

Koalas were recorded calling at 19 of the 65 ground-truthed sites, with no scats found at 16 sites and only single scats found at 3 sites. This indicates either a very low usage by Koalas or that the calling Koalas were outside the sampled area.

Half the sites recorded only1-3 calls over 7 nights in the breeding season, which does not indicate the presence of a breeding colony anywhere nearby.

It is particularly significant that any Koalas calling could have been hundreds of metres away or transient. Given that measurements of habitat variables were made within 50m of the recorders it means the variables measured (i.e. tree species, tree cover, stand structure, logging intensity) and used in analyses are not necessarily indicative of where Koalas live.

Both DPI-Forestry and the industry conveniently ignore other more robust research that has found Koalas prefer the larger trees targeted by loggers and that their populations are declining on State Forests.

A 2016 EPA study4 found that higher Koala activity was positively correlated with trees and forest structure of a more mature size class, and areas of least disturbance, concluding that once high quality Koala habitat in Clouds Creek and Maria River State Forests had been degraded and now have declining Koala populations.

A 2004 study5 by Dr. Andrew Smith of Pine Creek State Forest found that Koalas preferred structurally complex, uneven-aged forests with some mature and oldgrowth elements and a large basal area, concluding that modern high intensity harvesting practices that remove a high proportion of stand basal area and leave only small diameter stems (<50 cm diameter) are incompatible with koala conservation.

A 2013 Biolink6 study for Port Macquarie-Hastings Council found that State Forests had less than half the number of active Koala sites than nearby National Parks and concluded that logging had decimated the once substantive local Koala populations.

Whatever its shortcomings, the DPI-Forestry survey7 is based on past logging regimes where they attribute the persistence of Koalas near their sites to half the surrounding area being excluded from logging, including in riparian buffers, old growth and rainforest exclusion areas and Koala High Use Areas, as well as the retention of mature trees, habitat trees, recruitment trees and feed trees for other species in logged areas.

The NSW Government's new logging rules have doubled logging intensity, zoned 140,000 ha of coastal forests for clearfelling, removed the need to retain mature trees (including recruitment and most eucalypt feed trees), reduced the buffers on headwater streams and is intending to open up protected oldgrowth forest for logging. This will significantly increase impacts on Koalas.

Specifically for Koalas they are removing the need to look before they log and protect Koala High Use Areas, despite DPI-Forestry finding that Koala High Use Areas have 3 times the Koala call rate of recently logged forests.

In their submission to the new logging rules, the Office of Environment and Heritage8 complained in 2018 that the new Koala feed tree retention rates are less than half the number and of a smaller size than proposed by the Expert Fauna Panel, concluding that the increased logging intensity proposed under the new rules is expected to impact Koalas through diminished feed and shelter tree resources.

It is ironic that DPI-Forestry refer to a Forestry Corporation radio-tracking study2 in the early 1990s near Eden NSW to justify their claim that koala home ranges can comprise a mosaic of regrowth and unlogged habitat, as that population was extinct a few years later9.

Now history is repeating itself as the Forestry Corporation use dodgy science to deny impacts while introducing an Eden-style alternate coupe clearfelling regime into 140,000 ha of what they identify as the best Koala habitat on the north coast.

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