2024-06-28
Analysis undertaken by the Forest Alliance NSW shows forests in the proposed Great Koala National Park are being targeted with logging at a rate 3 times higher than other North Coast state forests. Despite the forests within the proposed National Park making up just one fifth of North Coast state forests, more than half of all logging operations are underway within forests that are part of the Great Koala National Park.
Greens MP and spokesperson for the environment Sue Higginson said “Preventing koalas from going extinct by 2050 is an obligation that all of us have responsibility for and that both sides of politics have committed to, but the Minns Government is undermining their own goals by logging the Great Koala National Park,”
“The pre-election commitment, that the Great Koala National Park would be established, has been trashed by Premier Minns and is seen as a political failure by the communities that live and work around these critical forests,”
“The continued logging is directly driving koalas closer to extinction, while also causing irreparable harm to the neighbours of these forests, as well as the businesses that rely on healthy forests for eco-tourism and the money that similar industries bring into the region,”
“Koalas, communities and tourism operators are watching day-by-day as their homes and livelihoods are being cut down and trucked away by the Forestry Corporation. All at a loss for the NSW treasury,”
“I cannot remember another time in NSW environmental history, where a promise for a National Park was made during an election, and then logging of that same area intensified when the promising Party won Government,”
“Without immediate Government intervention in this intensive logging of the Great Koala National Park, local extinction of koalas is a serious risk. Premier Minns must explain how this is anything other than a broken promise and political failure,” Ms Higginson said.