In Australia, limits are being placed on deforestation to save koalas

In New South Wales, Australia, the ban on deforestation to create a new protected area for koalas and save the local population from extinction.The stop will protect approximately 8,400 hectares of forest where 106 centers are located hot spots and will become a key part of the Large Koala National Park, a larger project that aims to safeguard the species across the entire state.As of 2022, the koala has been listed as endangered in two Australian states and the Capital Territory. Brad Smith, interim chief executive of the Nature Conservation Council – a non-governmental, non-profit organization representing more than 100 community conservation groups across New South Wales – described the area as “the most important koala habitat in the world".He then added:“This is a historic step forward, which is also a recognition that deforestation has a devastating impact on koalas and biodiversity.”

The koala (also called koala bear) is an Australian marsupial mammal that it spends almost all its life in trees of eucalyptus, which are also its main source of nutrition.The greatest concentrations of koalas are found along the east coast of Australia, from Adelaide to the base of the Cape York Peninsula.The species, despite being made up of hundreds of thousands of individuals at the beginning of the last century, has now been facing serious problems of extinction for decades:already in 2012 the species had been declared “vulnerable” by the Australian Federal Government and in 2019 by the Australian Koala Foundation charity he estimated a residual population of around 80 thousand specimens, declaring that they «believe that koalas may be functionally extinct», i.e. no longer capable of maintaining a genetic variety suitable for the survival of the species.Following the fires of 2019-2020, the number has further reduced and the estimates they detected a strong risk of extinction by 2050.From 2022, the Australian Government he entered koalas in the list of species at risk of extinction of Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, i.e. a large part of their natural habitat.

Second Stuart Blanch, the spokesperson for WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) Australia, the number of koalas in New South Wales has suffered a dramatic decline, decreasing by over 50% only between 2000 and 2020 due to deforestation, drought and devastating forest fires.«The government's choice is therefore an opportunity to reverse this tragedy.If we want to save koalas from extinction this century, then we need huge new protected areas covering millions of hectares of forest,” he added.However, Greens spokeswoman Sue Higginson defined the initiative as "a gift to the timber industry". Second Higginson, 58% of the koala population in the proposed area would remain unprotected by the ban and «deforestation is likely to continue throughout the Great Koala National Park area until at least 2025, due to the long period of time the government will be implementing these bans."He then concluded:“The government must work now to begin the transition of the native public forestry industry before it is too late for koalas and too late for other species that once depended on the forest.”The state government he reported which will soon begin consultations with the timber agency Forestry Corporation of New South Wales to “determine timber supply options”.

[by Roberto Demaio]