The NSW Government was elected promising to create the Great Koala National Park (GKNP). 

The park has been decades in the making, with leading scientists, scientists, ecologists and environmental groups all agreeing that the protection of this area was critical to ensure the survival of koalas in the wild. 

In opposition, you recognised the need to protect NSW’s koalas from extinction. The Great Koala National Park is that opportunity.  

One fifth of NSW’s koalas live within the 175,000ha of state forests that constitute this park – less than one percent of our state.  

Instead of protecting this critical forest, you have allowed logging to continue and expand within its borders.

Over the past year Forestry Corporation has continued to decimate key koala habitat that should have been protected.  

We’ve published new analysis showing that Forestry Corporation's harvest plan lists 19,000 hectares of forest within the proposed Great Koala National Park at risk from logging in the coming year.

The decision to ban logging within koala hubs was commendable but left over 90% of the park open to logging.  

Now, Forestry Corporation is seeking to redefine the borders of the park, reducing its size and excluding critical koala habitat by falsely calling them 'plantation forests’.    

If you allow this to occur, you risk a park that is ecologically unviable. You risk being the politician that allowed taxpayer’s money to be spent on the destruction and ultimate extinction of NSW’s koalas. 

Victoria and Western Australia ended native forest logging last year. NSW is the only state government without a plan to phase out native forest logging. 

The least the NSW Government can do right now is deliver on their election promise and protect the koalas and forests of the Great Koala National Park.  

We call on you to:  

• Immediately suspend logging operations within the boundaries of the proposed Great Koala National Park. 
   
• Protect the full 315,000 hectares of the proposed Great Koala National Park. 
   
• Invest in the plantation industry to ensure NSW sources all its timber from sustainable plantations and to create good, sustainable jobs. 
   
• Cease conversion of native forest to plantation and protect koala habitat within existing plantations in the Great Koala National Park footprint.

Photo: Cassie Lafferty