DEAR News Of The Area,
THE 176,000 hectare Great Koala National Park that was first committed to by the current Environment Minister, Penny Sharpe, and former Leader of the Opposition, Luke Foley, in 2014/15, is home to at least one fifth of the koala population of NSW.
Within it there are currently 13 active native forest logging operations being conducted by Forestry Corporation NSW (FCNSW).
These are in forests that the Minns Government promised to protect as a key environmental election commitment.
By comparison, across the entire remainder of the public forest estate of north-east NSW, north of Sydney, there are only 11 other active operations.
Every minute of every working day, since being elected, the Minns Government has logged a house-block sized area of forest.
From Wednesday 20 November to Monday 25 November eighteen truckloads of prime koala habitat logs were removed from Little Newry State Forest.
Logging is scheduled to continue until January 2025.
These logs were hauled through a mapped Koala Hub and this Koala Hub has been partially isolated by industrial logging of the native forests on one side and the Pacific Highway on the other.
In less than a week of logging, FCNSW have caused significant harm to the highly biodiverse coastal native forests at Little Newry that are known to be a key koala stronghold and to support the only known significant koala population on the coastline between Urunga and Nambucca Heads.
Little Newry Forest is highly significant to Gumbaynggirr people as it adjoins Ninguu Mirral.
Concerned locals are attending daily vigils to remind the state government that it must urgently call a halt to the logging of Little Newry and all remaining koala habitat forests.
Regards,
De MARKO,
Forest Ecology Alliance,
Nambucca Heads.