Can you imagine our country without koalas? Well incredibly for the first time in our history, the future is dire for one of our national icons - film from Today Tonight can be accessed from this page. Scroll down to view the story. Business as usual urban development where trees are cleared causes stress and stress induced disease chlamydia follows with dire consequences.
When your children ask you,
‘What did you do to save the koala?' What will you say?
The koala is likely to become extinct in South-East Queensland unless the State government and local authorities act now.
A major cause of this devastating slide to extinction is avoidable loss of habitat: lost to
The Queensland Government has the power to make the decisions that will stop this loss.
Anthony Mitrow reporter from the Jimboomba Times continues to follow local koala's story of survival in paper dated 21 January 2009. The koala's future survival depends on all of us. Unless Babe's habitat is surveyed and mapped for inclusion in the 2009 SEQ Regional Plan it will have no protection. REPORT YOUR SIGHTINGS and help make this happen.
BABE the koala has been hit by a car, chased by dogs and suffered a urinary tract infection, but the little survivor has now been released back into his natural habitat in Jimboomba after months of rehabilitation.
The young animal has spent the last four and a half months at Australia Zoo where it underwent treatment for a range of injuries.
Babe first came to the attention of Jimboomba resident John King-Bayliss when he found the animal on Marks Road, Jimboomba. Mr King-Bayliss chased the dogs away and contacted Logan City Council who searched the area for the dogs which were not found, before confirming the koala was safe.
Later that evening Mr King-Bayliss found Babe injured on the side of the road.
"It had been hit by a car. It had blood coming from his mouth and he couldn't use one of his arms." Mr King-Bayliss said.he made calls to animal wildlife organizations but was unable to get help until he was given the number for Waterford-based wildlife carer Mark Alexander from Wildlife Answers .
Logan and Albert Conservation Association LACA ,Brisbane Region Environment Council BREC and Residents Action on Infrastructure Development and Environment RAIDE have been working with the EPA, Main Roads Metro, Main Roads Nerang and Logan City Council for the last 3 years to provide a dedicated fauna underpass immediately south of Stoney Camp Rd and Granger Rd (under the Mt Lindesay Highway) and to improve the environmental designs of the highway to facilitate local and regional fauna movement. This is part of the regional biodiversity corridor and is used by wildlife - eastern grey kangaroos koalas and other less visible to us fauna. Munruben Wetlands locally called Jerry's Downfall is also where the nationally endangered spotted tailed quoll has been 'spotted'.
Logan and Albert Conservation Association believes that the greatest threats to the long term survival of koalas in South East Queensland include loss of habitat to allow for expansion of the urban footprint and associated infrastructure and failure to identify Koala Conservation Areas by surveying.
Here we will endeavour to provide links to relevant reports, documents, websites, news stories, EPA documents and other resources that will help the reader follow the koala's path to the future.
Please contact us if you would like to contribute to this resource page.
This report from EPA : Report on Koala Coast koala surveys 2005-2006 has details regarding koala population decline - they do refer to Logan but it is only Logan in the Koala Coast Region (ie east of the Pacific Motorway).
Another report of interest is that detailing information about the requirement to have a koala spotter for clearing trees in District A. The file Tree clearing and trimming - Koala Spotter requirements is available here.
Some Terms used and explained include:
Clearing: the Koala Plan refers to the Integrated Planning Act 1997 for the definition of "clearing". Under this Act, clearing means remove, cut down, ring bark, push over or destroy in any way including burning, flooding or draining. It does not include destroying standing vegetation by stock or lopping a tree.
District A: is defined as the SEQ Region as per the SEQ Regional Plan. District A contains the highest koala population densities at the highest risk from threatening processes.
Koala Habitat Areas are identified as Koala Conservation Areas (KCA), Koala Sustainability Areas (KSA) or Urban Koala Areas (UKA).
Koala Habitat Tree: means a tree of any of the following genera: Angophora; Corymbia (gum tree), Eucalyptus (gum tree); Lophostemon (brush box or swamp box); or Melaleuca (paper bark or tea tree).
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The whole Queensland government Koala Conservation Plan and Management Plan 2006-2016 [6.32Mb] can be accessed or downloaded from this page - essential reading before the review of SEQ Regional Plan towards end 2008.
Premier The Honourable Anna Bligh, and Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation The Honourable Andrew McNamara released a joint statement Wednesday 5 August 2008. It reads
are among options to be considered as the Bligh Government confronts a crisis facing koalas in southeast Queensland.
Premier Anna Bligh said new research showed the population of koalas in the wild was directly linked to the animals' movement through urban areas and urgent action was needed to slow the dramatic mortality rate.
This information has come to light since the introduction in 2006 of the Government's Koala Plan and means more radical moves are needed to stop the extinction of koalas in SEQ.