Koala Plotters Defend Role Of Logging
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday October 29, 1993
Deep in the Nullica State Forest, Dr Jim Shields and a group of Eden foresters are carefully plotting the movements of five koalas.
The koalas are the subject of intensive research, part of a joint venture between State Forests (formerly the NSW Forestry Commission) at Eden in south-east NSW and the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Data collected since 1991 is now being used as a management tool for the 160,000 hectares of hardwood forests under the control of the Eden district office.
While conservationists and the parks service want a logging moratorium so that more research can be done, State Forests argues that logging and the koala population can co-exist happily.
Koalas are rare in this part of NSW. There have been sporadic sightings since the 1960s but no-one knows exactly how many live here. The animals were abundant until the turn of the century, according to State Forests, then the skin trade, land clearing and disease caused numbers to drop dramatically.
Dr Roger Martin, of Monash University's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, said koalas in the south-east were part of an original population and could possibly constitute a unique gene pool. Dr Martin believes this gives them national significance.
The Eden District Forester, Mr David Ridley, is blunt: "I love koalas, my kids love koalas, but I think we can have koalas and logging. We are doing more than most with intensive field surveys costing $40 to $130 per hectare."State Forests, he said, had an unshakable commitment to preserving the region's population.
The Eden operations forester, Mr Steve Roffey, said with the use of research and careful management, timber contracts in the region could be filled without endangering koalas.
If koalas were found in an area where logging was proposed then a moratorium was declared to any activity including logging, road building or controlled burning.
Logging could only resume after a proper study of the area and only after buffer zones and wildlife corridors were set up, Mr Roffey said.
However, a member of the South-East Forest Conservation Council, Mr Chris Allen, said the koala population had already suffered from disturbance caused by logging.
He said it was vital that the State Forests research was reviewed and verified by independent scientists before any further logging was allowed.
© 1993 Sydney Morning Herald