CONSERVATIONISTS have been buoyed by a NSW Labor party announcement that, if elected in the upcoming State election, it will create a Great Koala National Park on the Mid North Coast, stretching from Kempsey to Coffs Harbour.

Penny Sharpe, the Leader of the Opposition in the NSW Legislative Council and the Shadow Minister for the Environment and for Heritage, visited Coffs Harbour last Friday to announce Labor’s plans.

The announcement was made in the Botanic Gardens, and fortuitously, a koala was present high up in a tree to witness it.

The Great Koala National Park is a major part of Labor’s overall strategy to preserve koalas in the wild.

Other aspects of the plan include completing the National Parks and Wildlife Service National Parks Establishment Plan to identify key habitat and wildlife corridors and expand protected areas and convening a koala summit to review and refocus the NSW Koala Strategy to provide a recovery plan for koala populations across NSW.

Labor will also initiate a statutory review of the Biodiversity Conservation Act to strengthen environmental protections, prevent illegal land clearing, and improve the biodiversity offset scheme.

They party says it will work cooperatively with landowners (public, First Nations, councils, farmers and other private land holders) to develop ways to protect key habitat through partnerships and investment on all types of land and with the Commonwealth Government to meet the objectives of the Threatened Species Action Plan 2022-2032 and commit to the goal of no new extinctions.

“The decisions we make will decide whether koalas survive or not,” said Ms Sharpe.

She said it is not a political issue because koalas are an iconic species that we all love.

The President of the National Parks Association of NSW (NPA), Grahame Douglas, said, “We are delighted to see that a Minns Labor government will commit $80m to commence the process of making the Great Koala National Park a reality,

“The NPA has been campaigning alongside regional community conservation groups for many years to see the protection of critical koala habitat in public native forests on the Mid North Coast.”

The NPA’s Great Koala National Park campaign coordinator, Paula Flack, said that after years of tireless community campaigning “our volunteers are hopeful that NSW koalas may finally have a chance of survival”.

“Koala numbers in NSW plummeted by more than half between 2000 and 2020 due to logging, land clearing, drought and devastating bushfires.

“The remaining koalas need trees to survive and the best way to save koalas is to save their habitat,” Ms Flack said.

The NPA says the Great Koala National Park will also provide significant economic benefits to the region through direct and indirect jobs in park establishment and maintenance and tourism, citing an independent economic study that found the park would create over 9,000 new jobs.

However, Ms Flack said there needs to be an immediate moratorium on logging in native forests.

Convener for the Coffs Harbour Greens, Tim Nott, agrees.

“While any movement to save the Koala is supported, high intensity logging of public forests in the Great Koala National Park area are double previous clearing rates,” Mr Nott said.

“I implore Labor to show courage and place a stop on all native forestry logging activities in the Great Koala National Park if elected.”

Ms Sharpe said the Great Koala National Park will not only be a great outcome for koalas but also for Coffs Harbour, particularly in terms of tourism.

She stressed that Labor will work with the community, including Gumbaynggirr people, and that the process has to include an economic review of the timber industry.

“We are trying to build a coalition to save koalas and hope that the Liberals and the Nationals will work with us,” she said.

“Are we going to be able to save koalas or are we only able to see them in a zoo?”

By Andrew VIVIAN