Notes from the field: Koala-loving community
This background made Liz the ideal writer to cover our story on the region’s Great Koala National Park.
“My family property is flanked on two sides by Tuckers Nob State Forest, portions of which have been identified as a koala hub and earmarked for inclusion in the Great Koala National Park (GKNP),” Liz said. While in the field she witnessed industrial logging inside this very forest – large swathes cut and burnt – and timber trucks with their payloads rumbling backwards and forwards all day long.
“In Bellingen, a small town just south of the forest, ‘Save the Koala’ posters are plastered on walls and billboards, and community rallies calling for an end to logging are commonplace,” Liz said. “At the monthly community market, you can pick up koala habitat saplings for next to nothing, and local businesses supply coffee and cakes free of charge to protestors who have been peacefully blocking access to state forests, slated for logging, since early this year. It’s heartening to see communities across the proposed park’s range come together for Australia’s iconic and endangered ‘bear’.”
Protecting these places, however, comes at a cost to the NSW timber industry, with 1760sq.km of state forest between Port Macquarie and Grafton – GKNP’s southern and northern reaches of the GKNP – set down for inclusion. “It certainly looks as though there’s a dash-and-grab operation underway,” Liz said, “and in habitat that protects about 20 per cent of the state’s wild koala population and 44 per cent of its identified koala hubs.”
But perhaps the last word on the matter should come from Anne Coyle, who for more than 30 years has fought for the protection of Pine Creek State Forest. The forest is currently slated for logging – despite being one of NSW’s premier koala habitats. “Exasperation spilled out of Anne’s mouth,” Liz said, “when she told me: ‘In all these years, nothing has changed. Everyone loves koalas but won’t do what they need…[to] protect their habitat from logging.’”
