Koalas: NSW government creates new national park for endangered koalas
Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Environment Minister Matt Kean have announced a new national park designed to stop koalas being wiped out in the next 30 years.
NSW
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A new National Park has been carved out of the Southern Highlands to save the region’s koala population after the horror summer bushfires.
Named Guula Ngurra, which translates to “koala country” in the local Aboriginal language, the 3558ha park northwest of Bowral is the centrepiece of a strategy to prevent the koala disappearing in as little as 30 years.
The national park “represents more than 40,000 years of traditional history, but also brings together our strategy to protect our environment, (and) to protect koala habitat,” Premier Gladys Berejiklian said on Sunday.
“There have been two sightings and two particular areas within this area where koalas are living, but clearly, it is not enough.”
State Environment Minister Matt Kean said the park “will be home to 130 native animal species — including 20 which are threatened or endangered”.
“You cannot protect koalas unless you protect trees, and there is no better way to protect trees than by fortifying and expanding our national park estate,” he said.
It comes after a parliamentary inquiry found that koalas would be extinct in NSW within 30 years “without urgent government intervention to protect habitat and address all other threats”.
Ms Berejiklian said the government would “consider the recommendations of the recent parliamentary inquiry into koala populations and habitat in NSW, particularly given the destruction caused by the recent bushfires”.
Mr Kean said there were some indications that half of the state’s koala population was lost in the fires.
“I want to make sure that we cannot only stabilise our koala populations, but we can double them and ensure our kids and their kids can see them in the wild in the future,” he said. “I want to see core koala habitat continue to be protected. This is just the beginning. We have got a lot more to do.”
The state government has committed almost $45m so far to protect koala habitats.
As part of that plan, announced in 2018, 24,000ha of koala reserves and parks will be created, and work is also being done to reduce the rates of chlamydia in the animals.