Great Koala National Park

[alnjan]

https://npansw.org/what-we-do/our-work/campaigns/great-koala-national-park/

This is back on the Agenda, not that it ever went away for some, with some of our Greens Councils pushing for it.  I am all for protecting and helping the koalas numbers to increase again but with National Parks track record of managing the land and existing tracks it may well be the death knoll not just for for 4wding but a lot of exploring for a large section of the North Coast with existing State Forests to be handed over to and become National Park forming the one Great Koala National Park. 

Last time this was bandied about the maps at the time had pretty all State Forest from roughly Kempsey to the Qld Border but I see in the maps this time around they are looking at Kempsey to just south of the Clarence. 

Still a massive chunk of countryside to lock up and turn into bushfire country to kill all the Koalas off in.    Oops did I say that aloud. 

[alnjan]

Election time.  So we have the usual crowd pushing to close our State Forests and lock it up like National Parks and call it eco tourism. 

Leave our State Forests alone and let us freely go about our recreation. 

[Pottsy]

Send them to Cape Otway National Park and let them see what happens when Koalas go unchecked.
We visited about seven or eight years ago, spotted 50+ koala in 500 metres, back two years ago, no koalas, no trees with any vegetation, completely and utterly devastated by them.

[alnjan]

Yep for some many reasons State Forestry manage the land, flora and fauna so much better.  Their guise of eco tourism is to make you pay for what we are already freely allowed to do in a State Forest and to stop us doing what they don't want us doing.  Just wrong on so many levels. 

[Redback]

It makes sense to open up more habitat, that way you don't get what is happening in the Otways and other regions around Australia, I don't see an issue personally, small price to pay to help the Koala.

[alnjan]

Koalas already live in State Forests and Forestry already have Management Plans in place to ensure the survival and protection of the not just the Koala but all Native flora and fauna while still harvesting timber.  Why destroy something that is already working to replace it with something that has a management plant that involved locking everyone out of.   

All the activities and EcoTourism that wish to be set up in the new Great Koala National Park are already freely available in State Forests or can be set up just as easy in State Forest.  The greatest push for the Great Koala National Park is directly to stop the logging, to stop a successful renewable sustainable industry that has far great benefits for the Community and environment to replace it with something we are locked out of and mismanaged.   

[Redback]

Koala numbers are declining on the mainland because of loss of habitat.

[Bird]

Koala numbers are declining on the mainland because of loss of habitat.

agree.. thats why we have these small 'pockets' jam packed with them which is no good for anybody, specially the animals themselves.