Dear Minister Speakman and Minister Blair,

I am writing to express my outrage over new proposals by the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) to allow clear felling of large areas of forests on the North Coast. I firmly believe that this could be the catalyst that tips koalas onto the path to extinction in NSW. 

They are a reincarnation of extreme logging proposals put forward by Forestry Corporation 20 and 30 years ago that were roundly rejected at the time by state and federal governments, and would have a devastating impact on areas such as the proposed Great Koala National Park (GKNP). 

The EPA’s proposals include alarming recommendations that would together impact a significant two-thirds of the 170,000ha of state forest in the GKNP proposal:

• Allow clear felling of 30 per cent of coastal forests in the proposed GKNP proposal;
• Allow destructive cable logging in mountainous forest which cover about 30 per cent of the proposed GKNP;
• Allow more intensive harvesting in the remaining third of the proposed park—the forests between the coast and the mountain forests.

In New South Wales and Queensland, the koala, our national icon is declining rapidly. Please don’t stand by and let this happen. At the current rate of decline koalas will be extinct in NSW by 2050. That’s just 9 terms of your government. You can elect to either ignore the evidence and let history record your contribution to this sad but avoidable outcome or you can chart a new path with decisive action that could secure the future of koalas in NSW.

Large well managed protected areas like the proposed Great Koala National Park remain the single most effective tool for conserving biodiversity worldwide. The GKNP would not only protect two nationally significant koala metapopulations containing 20% of NSW’s remaining wild koalas, but also the many threatened species that share their home, such as the Spotted-Tailed Quoll, Hastings River Mouse and Powerful Owl.

The short-term gains of unsustainable forest logging are far outweighed by the economic, social and biodiversity benefits the new park would bring.

I urge you to stop the proposed logging in koala habitat and commit to creating the Great Koala National Park as a matter of urgency so that future generations can enjoy koalas in the wild, as we do today.