THE latest land clearing data by the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) have been released, with shocking statistics showing that 75 hectares of wildlife habitat is lost each day in New South Wales, 75 hectares of wildlife habitat is bulldozed or logged every day in NSW, almost twice the average annual rate recorded before the Coalition Government’s change of nature laws in 2016.

The annual Statewide Land and Tree Study data also shows 27,610 hectares of native forest were destroyed for farming, forestry and development in 2020.

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Nature Conservation Council Chief Executive Chris Gambian said that his astounding rate of deforestation is a disaster for wildlife and the climate.

“In just one year we have lost an area of native forest nearly double the size of Royal National Park.

“It is simply unsustainable,” Mr Gambian said.

Based upon World Wildlife Fund Australia data on population densities, Mr Gambian says that clearing on this scale would have killed up to 4.6 million animals in just twelve months.

These statistics are increasingly concerning for locals of Port Stephens and the Myall Coast, who frequently fear for the threatened population of koalas to the area.

Secretary of the Myall Koala & Environment Group, Ian Morphett, told News Of The Area that the wildlife decline on the Myall Coast is due to the destruction of habitat.

In 1999, the NSW Scientific Committee declared the Hawks Nest and Tea Gardens koala population “endangered”, only one of two in NSW (the other was Pittwater).

“At that time the population was estimated to be about ten animals and a Koala Recovery Plan was established in 2003 with the hope that over the next ten years the Koala Group estimates that the population would increase to about 22.

“Sadly, the population has declined from that point.

“There has not been a koala seen in Tea Gardens or Winda Woppa in eight years and there have only been a few sightings in Hawks Nest in the past year,” Mr Morphett said.

Mr Morphett says that this is due to habitat loss over the past ten to fifteen years, and that the recent DPIE statistics wholeheartedly demonstrate this.

“Tea Gardens has seen significant developments in Myall Quays, the Grange, Palm Lake Resort and Shearwater that have significantly destroyed koala habitats.

“Then in 2016, the Rural Fire Service introduced the 10/50 Code which allowed property owners to remove any tree within ten metres of any building in a ‘bushfire zone’ without getting any approvals,” he said.

Initially, all of Hawks Nest was defined a ‘bushfire zone’ and Mr Morphett says this resulted in unscrupulous tree cutters coming to town, with about 20 percent of trees removed, with many of them koala feed or ‘home’ trees.

Koala population regeneration efforts include important wildlife corridors for koalas to migrate for genetic diversity between urban areas and larger bushland; however, Ian says that these corridors are under threat.

“The corridors to these areas are constantly under threat of development in localities such as North Hawks Nest, North Shearwater and Bundabah/ Pindimar.

“Unless the State Government dramatically changes rules on land clearing, particularly relating to retaining and enhancing wildlife corridors, koalas and other migratory animals will have no hope of recovery by 2050,” he said.

By Tara CAMPBELL