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Are Koalas threatened species? NSW reform takes aim at agriculture

Jason Ross 18/07/2024

THE NSW government is pushing to add Koalas and 33 other “threatened species” to the Biodiversity Offsets Scheme, which, if successful, could be a death sentence for the state’s forestry, farming, mining, and agriculture industries, that is, according to industry.

Wood Central can reveal that the NSW Department of Environment and Heritage, sans media release, opened the 21-day public consultation period for the public to comment last Monday, with consultation to close on the 29th of July 2024.

“The Biodiversity Offsets Scheme recognises that there are some types of serious and irreversible impacts that the community expects will not occur except in certain circumstances,” according to the NSW Department of Environment and Heritage, which said that “potential serious and irreversible impacts (will be) identified by accredited assessors in either a Biodiversity Assessment Development Report or a Biodiversity Certification Assessment Report, and the decision maker makes a determination.”

Crucially, the scheme has major implications for agricultural, real estate and forestry development consents, especially in areas where species are listed as per clause 6.7 of the Biodiversity Conservation Regulation 2017.

Wood Central spoke to several stakeholders involved in the NSW farming and agricultural sectors who were only informed about the 21-day public consultation (which now has just 13 days left) earlier today.

“If the species is listed, it could severely limit any forestry (or any other) development consents where there is a preferred koala habitat,” according to Timber NSW CEO Maree McCaskill, who added that “it be a big change in the decision-making framework that currently exists.”

“The clock is now ticking, with NSW agricultural industries running out of time to submit scientific evidence against any of the 34 listed species.”

Timber NSW CEO Maree McCaskill who said the change to the Biodiversity Offset Scheme could be terminal for not only the NSW hardwood industry but also the agricultural and farming industries

As per the scheme, clearing and part 4 developments (which are not state-significant development or state-significant infrastructure) could be subject to immediate cessation. “The decision maker must not grant approval if they determine the proposal is likely to have a serious and irreversible impact on biodiversity values,” according to the NSW Department of Environment and Heritage.

Why the Koala (or Phascolarctos cinereus) is being added to the list

Nominated under Principle 1 of the Regulation, the NSW government cites evidence from experts at a 2020 parliamentary inquiry into koalas, which found that the species could be extinct by 2050.

“While the difficulty of estimating numbers was recognised by the inquiry, there is clear evidence that the population is in severe decline both statewide and in important regional populations,” the NSW Department of Environment and Heritage argues in the document now before the public. “An expert from the inquiry projected an NSW population reduction of >80% in 50 years and within three generations, as indicated by observed decreases in area of occupancy. After the 2019–20 fires, the expert conservatively estimated a population decrease of 28.5 to 65.95%.”

The push to add koalas to the list, thanks to “rapidly declining populations”, comes after Wood Central last week revealed that Koala populations are up to 10 times more abundant than previously estimated. Published as part of the CSIRO’s National Koala Monitoring Programme (NKMP), which has, since 2023, used expert data rather than expert opinion to calculate Koala abundance and disturbance.

And the results are surprising, with the CSIRO estimating the current population range between 287,830 and 628,010, about ten times more than the numbers forecast by the Australian Koala Foundation (between 32,000 and 58,000 in 2021 after the Australian Black Summer bushfires).

In effect, the number of koalas is now higher than in 2012 (forecast to be 144,000 to 605,000), when koala populations were classified as “vulnerable” and not “endangered.”

For more information about the Biodiversity Offsets Scheme, including details about providing a submission, visit the NSW Department of Environment and Heritage dedicated website.

  • This article first appeared on Wood Central

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Comments

  1. Graeme Gall, 19/07/2024

    It seems agricultural will yet again shoulder the cost of environmental conservation almost single handedly despite being the industry that has enabled koalas to increase substantially.

    Governments have effectively mismanaged the parks and reserves by interfering with the natural balance by excluding fire allowing for the catastrophic fires that saw, not only kola number decimated but many other animal, sacrificed by well meaning however fundamentally flawed fire regimes that control fire until all the wrong stars aline such as what we saw in 2019. Well meaning governments and environmental activists need to see and understand how misguided their policies are. Don’t fight with nature but rather realise it is far more powerful than these effective naive power brokers.

    Control burns have to be enabled even when they are inconvenient to the east coast populated areas. We have had first hand experience where winter control burn were theoretically allowed however the green tape meant that the burn was delayed by a year.

    • Garrey Sellars, 25/07/2024

      Well stated
      again Urban sprall is exempt

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