Golden Age: Italian cities could help save koalas and native wildlife on the Gold Coast

A LEADING Gold Coast conservation figure has revealed a surprising solution to our declining koala population, which comes straight from some of the world’s oldest cities.

KOALAS should be able to travel right down to the beach — just like wild animals roam around some of the oldest cities in Europe.

That’s according to Dreamworld Wildlife Foundation director Al Mucci, who is in Tuscany to study how cities in the Italian region with greater populations than the Gold Coast manage to coexist with native wildlife.

The conservationist said the decimation of local koala populations, most recently to the north of the Gold Coast, was due to habitat destruction and a failure to plan adequate wildlife corridors throughout the city.

“Koalas should be spread right up to the beach if we kept environmental corridors on the Gold Coast,” Mr Mucci said.

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Dreamworld general manager of life sciences Al Mucci. Photography: David Kelly.

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“But now the closest koalas to the coast are at Runaway Bay in Pine Ridge Regional Park and even then they’re struggling, even the kangaroo population.

“Because there’s an urban sprawl around and we didn’t build a corridor so they can’t get out.”

Mr Mucci said Italian cities including Florence, Lucca, Pisa and Siena managed areas with higher populations than the Gold Coast without excessively disrupting wildlife.

“They are all big cities in a small area, yet they’ve got forested areas where wolves, eagles, porcupines and even bears still live,” Mr Mucci said.

“(When they build) they’re not thinking about the animal, they’re thinking about the landscape — they manage their town planning in a holistic manner.”

Mr Mucci said to preserve native wildlife, planning should focus on the need to protect the natural environment.

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“Development is good here, they’ve been doing it for 2500 years, but the community value the landscape of Tuscany, so they make sure the developments take that into consideration,” he said.

“So when they build a new highway it’s elevated to take bears into consideration so they can still move between the corridors, or they tunnel through hills so they don’t need to clear bushland — they spend the dough to keep those values.

“They’re not scarring the land with a death by a thousand cuts, because everyone’s not just thinking of their own little spot. There’s a holistic approach to it all.”

Koalas would be able to roam around the Gold Coast if the city was designed like an Italian metropolis. Photo by Richard Gosling

Mr Mucci called on developers on the Gold Coast to lead the way and for governments to focus on maintaining habitat for wildlife.

“Let’s keep the remaining landscape beautiful,” Mr Mucci said.

“Rather than just the easy way, which is to get bulldozers in to bulldoze the entire thing to build and community then plant exotic trees afterwards, let’s build into the landscape like they do here in Tuscany.

“It’s not too far gone on the Gold Coast.”