Shock technology to be used to save the koala

The Prime Minister will pledge to use hi-tech drones as part of a $50 million program to save koalas on his second day of a green-focused Queensland tour.

Hi-tech drones will be deployed to save the koalas as part of a $50 million program to track, treat and grow more trees for the threatened marsupial.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will make the announcement in the Sunshine Coast today, near the marginal LNP seat of Longman, on his second day of a green-focused Queensland tour.

The cash is budgeted over four years and will include $20 million for habitat and health protection projects via grants to government, non-government and industry groups, $10 million for a national monitoring program, $10 million for community habitat programs, as well as $3 million for health research including in combating disease in koalas like retrovirus, herpesviruses, and chlamydia.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will commit $50 million to koala protection today.

But the research will include the use of drones and acoustic monitoring to detect koalas across urban and peri-urban pilot sites, while there will also be a partnership with WWF Australia to support habitat replanting through hi-tech drones.

Environment Minister Sussan Ley said there was already work taking place with drones, which had seeded 15,000 koala feed trees in Hidden Valley in Queensland, but the funding would expand the work.

“Importantly, the extra funding will build on work already happening across the koala range to restore and connect important habitat patches, control feral animal and plant species, and improve existing habitat,” she said.

Mr Morrison said the funding was about restoring koala habitat, improving our understanding of koala populations, supporting training in koala treatment and care.

“Koalas are one of Australia’s most loved and best recognised icons, both here at home and across the world, and we are committed to protecting them for generations to come,” he said.
If followed Mr Morrison’s trip to Cairns on Friday where he announced a $1 billion Great Barrier Reef rescue package, which included cash for research into heat-resistant coral, eradicating crown of thorns starfish as well as for working with farmers and First Nations people to improve water quality.

Longman and Leichhardt which includes Cairns are target seats at the next election, which Labor is campaigning to win from the Coalition.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Environment Minister Sussan Ley and Member for Leichhardt Warren Entsch in Cairns yesterday. Picture: Brendan Radke

Opposition environment spokeswoman Terri Butler said the World Heritage Committee was still considering putting the Great Barrier Reef on the in-danger list and greatest threat to the reef was climate change.

“The fact is if they had taken reef protection seriously over the decade in office, we would be in a much better place to not be in danger of being on the list,” Ms Butler said.

Greens senator Larissa Waters said it was “a belated cash splash on the Great Barrier Reef” and a “joke from a government that has turbo charged the climate crisis”.

Whitsundays diving tour operator Tony Fontes said there needed to be significant cuts to carbon emissions this decade to give the Great Barrier Reef its best chance.

“Improving water quality and controlling the crown-of-thorns starfish will certainly build much-needed reef resilience but no amount of money earmarked for Reef resilience programs can stave off the brutal impacts of climate change,” he said.