New evidence debunks the scientific basis that has justified the logging of critical koala habitat. Knowing this it is even more important to see this koala documentary at Roseville Cinema on Wednesday 17 July 2024 6.30pm.
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Koalas in Ku-ring-gai
Logging based on false koala count methodology
The supposed scientific basis that has justified native forest logging in critical koala habitat has now been discredited.
Dr Andrew Smith and John Pile paper Koala density, habitat, conservation, and response to logging in eucalyptus forest; a review and critical evaluation of call monitoring (June, 2024) challenges the existing methodologies used to survey koala populations. The paper can be found here.
This review of methodologies completely undermines the ecological and social licences of logging operations across NSW.
The impact of logging our public native forests on koalas has been wrongly premised on methodologies established by surveys first conducted by Brad Law in 1996 and 1997, in which the count of male mating bellows is assumed to be a proxy for the general health and number of nearby koalas.
This accepted assumption has long been challenged by koala experts, citizen scientists and koala carers.
However, it has been publicly endorsed by the Natural Resources Commission, the Department of Primary Industries, the Forestry Corporation and members of the National Party that has effectively justified land clearing and logging on koala populations.
The recent paper by Smith and Pile shows that, while it is true that breeding males will roam low-quality habitat, and thus their calls can be heard in low-quality habitat, in order for breeding females to successfully bear joeys, they require access to high quality habitat with denser and more varied feed trees.
Habitat quality is, therefore, a much more important factor in assessing the numbers, strength and health of koala populations than is currently recognised in policy and practice in logging in NSW New South Wales. The removal of mature, native trees in koala habitat threatens this resilience.
The paper finds “average koala density increased steeply and significantly, from 0.02 – 0.20 koalas/hectare, with increasing mapped habitat quality based on increasing forest age, structural complexity, local food tree species diversity, history of prior koala occurrence and decreased past logging intensity. This relationship was driven primarily by breeding females, with the number of male koala calls weakly or uncorrelated with koala sightings and mapped habitat quality.”
And, that “Male koalas were more widely and uniformly distributed than females, including areas of low quality, plantation, and intensively logged forest. This finding explains the discrepancy between our results and those of other recent studies which concluded that koalas are tolerant of intensive logging based on modelling of calling male koalas and reliance on an untested assumption that male calling is indicative of female breeding success.”
It is now overdue and urgent that an immediate moratorium on logging in all native forests thought to contain koala habitat until populations are resurveyed without relying on disproven male mating call methodologies.
It is horrifying that nearly half of active logging operations in our public native forests in New South Wales are taking place in habitat earmarked for the Great Koala National Park, reliant on a methodology that cannot accurately assess koala populations.
It is now important for the NSW Government to urgently intervene to ensure that the future of our Great Koala National Park is not a place where lonely male koalas, wander native forests decimated by tree extraction, bellowing for mates they cannot, they will not find.
Koalas in Ku-ring-gai
The last sighting of Koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) in Ku-ring-gai was in 1979 when they were seen in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park.
Koalas were sighted in Gordon in the 1920s and St Ives in the 1960s. However, with urbanisation, deforestation and habitat loss, Ku-ring-gai’s koalas are now locally extinct. This indicates that wildlife conservation in Greater Sydney cannot rely solely on protected reserves but needs environmental controls over privately-owned land.
Housing has significant adverse impacts on wildlife due to habitat loss and fragmentation. As well clearing of bushland and trees for housing, roads, schools, and other buildings removes wildlife habitat and thus leads to local extinctions.
Extensive land use change across Greater Sydney, Australia’s oldest and most populous city, has occurred as a result of rapid population increase.
Koalas are still found in Greater Sydney in the Campbelltown region but they face threats from being killed as a result of motor vehicle collisions, dog attacks and chlamydia infection.
The extensive clearing or urban forests for housing developments have led to a dramatic decline in koala numbers.
Read the CSIRO paper below by Michael Mo, Enhua Lee, Ian Radasavljevic and Nancy Auerback “Database records of koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) in northern Sydney below and HERE