Koala campaigners are urging the state environment minister to permanently protect koalas in the Royal Camp State Forest near Casino threatened by the controversial logging over the past few years from serial offender Forestry Corporation. Source: Echonetdaily
The latest call for the forest to be protected for koalas as a reserve, comes as documents obtained under freedom of information laws confirmed the importance of the forest as a major koala habitat area vital for the survival of koalas throughout the Richmond Valley.
An ongoing fight by koala and anti-logging activists and the state’s Forestry Corporation campaigners over the past several years led to a moratorium on logging in the forest by the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) after it found the state’s Forestry Corporation had logged trees and built tracks in designated koala habitat there.
The North East Forest Alliance appealed to NSW environment minister Rob Stokes “to take positive action to protect threatened species by intervening to permanently protect the regionally significant koala population in Royal Camp forest, 16 km south west of Casino, from the Forestry Corporation”.
NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said the renewed efforts to protect Royal Camp’s koalas follows revelations in the EPA documents which showed repeated unauthorised logging activities in the forest and the agency’s own assessment of the forest’s regional significance because of its koala habitat.
Mr Pugh said that two years ago NEFA ‘stopped the Forestry Corporation illegally logging a Koala High Use Area in Royal Camp, with three other koala areas about to be logged.
“The EPA found that the Forestry Corporation had not adequately looked for koala scats and had logged 61 trees and constructed 405 metres of snig tracks within a Koala High Use Area,” he told Echonetdaily.
“When the Forestry Corporation resumed logging nearby a few days later NEFA again caught them out.
“The EPA confirmed that the unrepentant Forestry Corporation had not adequately looked for koala scats and had logged seven trees and constructed 230 metres of snig tracks within another Koala High Use Area.
“NEFA found that the Forestry Corporation logged another Koala High Use Area before logging stopped a couple of weeks later.
“When the Forestry Corporation attempted to resume logging in another part of Royal Camp a year ago, based on a plan that said there were no koalas, NEFA got in ahead of them and found extensive koala use and two more Koala High Use Areas, which the EPA again confirmed.
“This time the minister for planning required that an assessment of the koala’s regional significance be undertaken.”
Mr Pugh said that koala expert Dr Steve Phillips oversaw the work, which identified a resident koala population was ‘regionally significant because of the endangerment of koalas in the Richmond Valley LGA.
“On 1 July 2014 the EPA’s chief environmental regulator, Mark Gifford, wrote to the Forestry Corporation CEO, Nick Roberts, recommending “that no forestry activities occur in Royal Camp State Forest” until further regional work is undertaken,” he said.
“The evidence is overwhelming that compartments 13-16 of Royal Camp State Forest support a core breeding group of koalas that should be protected from the Forestry Corporation, and other direct threats to their survival, by inclusion in a reserve. ‘NEFA calls on the environment minister to now take action to ensure permanent protection for Royal Camp’s koalas,” Mr Pugh said.
