As the originator of the GKNP concept BEC wants to see urgent permanent protection of the proposed Park. The recent state election shows the public does not support more of the National Party’s koala wars.
We cannot wait for Labor’s $80 million consultation process before the implement the GKNP. We need a prohibition implemented now. The logging industry and the unions have no place in designing the Great Koala National Park. For the park to be credible it must be designed on scientific grounds and the logging industry and unionists have no valid contribution in the scientific process. It is against the precautionary principle to delay the protection of threatened species when it could cause irreversible harm.
We have been campaigning for over a decade for the protection of koalas within the proposed GKNP: which was the brainchild of the BEC’s life member and former chair Ashley Love.
“The Coffs Harbour-Guy Fawkes and the Bellinger- Nambucca-Macleay koala meta-populations are located adjacent to our World Heritage rainforests where they are both intermixed with the most diverse eucalypt forests in the World” said Ashley Love.
“Furthermore, this area shares with the rest of the NSW north coast the most surviving species of Gondawanian origin of any forests in the World – It is an amazing wonderland to save, conserve and enjoy” Ashley added.
This smash and grab attitude by Forestry Corporation must stop. They are targeting the long identified prime koala habitat within the GKNP.
These forests are refuge for the largest recognised koala populations and their habitat. Any logging here threatens the GKNP integrity.
“We call on the newly elected Labor Government to honour their election promise to create the GKNP in full and without delay”, said Catherine Jones, Secretary of BEC.
