ENCOURAGING news arrived, this month, for non-Australians’ favourite Australian animal. In Shakespeare’s words:
“How far that little candle throws its beams.
“So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”
I have a recurring nightmare about a narcissistic, power-crazed moron taking charge of the most powerful nation on earth, the only superpower currently capable of wiping out the entire human race. It pleases his arrogance to appoint incompetent toadies to all the great offices of state, where they run amok, bringing wanton death and destruction to innocent people all over the world.
On a whim, the autocrat betrays his closest allies and the institutions he has sworn to defend. He deliberately opposes the advice of climate scientists, medical authorities, economists, academics and others who have spent years reading and studying to advance human knowledge.
Then I wake up – only to find that Putin’s puppet really rules the waves, or thinks he does, like King Canute, and the only power capable of defending us from this unholy alliance is the despotic government of the Chinese Communist Party. I’m familiar with Trump’s desire to play Mussolini to Putin’s Hitler, but trying to imagine Xi Jin-Ping as Winston Churchill is a bridge too far. It’s a mad world, my masters.
In a saner country, the state government of New South Wales has announced that it will honour an election promise, two and a half years after its endorsement by the electorate. To the rage and fury of timber firms still hoping to fell the few remaining native trees, the Great Koala National Park has been declared, including most of the remaining native forest in northern NSW.
The World Wide Fund for Nature Australia estimates that the devastating Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20 killed or displaced almost three billion animals. About 60,000 koalas, a third of the population in NSW, were either burned to death or starved in the aftermath. Extinction by 2050 became a frightful possibility.
Environmental activists criticise the delay in implementing the policy, which received strong public support at the 2023 state election. The North East Forest Alliance claims that around 10,000 hectares of the future national park has been logged in the interim.
Both sides of the political divide find it hard to balance environmental concerns against the sectional interests of their supporters. Right-wing parties are lobbied by businesses whose operations damage the natural environment, while Labor’s funding from trade unions obliges it to tread carefully wherever jobs are threatened.
The government reckons the new Koala National Park will cost about 300 jobs in six local timber mills, while creating 100 or so new jobs for rangers in the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NWPS) and many more in the tourism sector. Change always seems to meet resistance, even when the benefits are clear.
The first suggestion for a new national park, to protect areas of native forest from the coast right up to the cooler tablelands, came from a retired NWPS officer, Ashley Love. The name was coined in 2015 by a former Labor leader of the opposition, Luke Foley, shadow minister for the environment at the time. Mindful of China’s giant panda reserves, he thought naming the proposed park for koalas would help to generate public interest and support – which it did.
The new park’s 176,000 hectares, mainly of state forest, is not a contiguous area of land, but includes many smaller pockets of rainforest and links with 300,000 hectares of existing National Parks around Coff’s Harbour.
As it is, an estimated 12,000 koalas, 36,000 greater gliders, many glossy black cockatoos, powerful owls and over 100 other threatened species will have a safe haven to re-establish their populations after the ravages of recent years. There is still a need to construct forest bridges at Pine Creek and elsewhere, to enable koalas and other native animals to move safely from one section of the park to another.
The native timber industry has been declining and reliant on hefty government subsidies for many years. According to economist Ken Henry, whose father was a timber worker, reduced demand for construction means only 10% of the wood taken ever reaches a sawmill, 50% is woodchipped, 30% is burned as firewood and the rest is pulped.
NSW Premier Chris Minns said his government was tempted to declare a smaller Park, as suggested by the timber industry, but they were persuaded by three important factors. The first was the real danger of koalas becoming extinct in NSW by 2050.
The second was a decision by the electricity network, Essential Energy, to phase out timber power poles and replace them with much lighter, fire-resistant poles made from a fibreglass and resin compound with a UV coating to boost bushfire resistance. The new poles will neither attract termites nor conduct lightning strikes.
The third factor was the potential to develop tourism in northern NSW, which receives far fewer visitors than iconic attractions like the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru and Sydney’s Harbour Bridge and Opera House. The NSW government will spend an additional $60 million on campgrounds, picnic places, walking trails and mountain bike tracks for tourists.
As in Jersey, there is a growing understanding in Australia that providing infrastructure for tourism is a government responsibility.
It’s a refreshingly positive story, contrasting with the madness and mayhem abroad. And for anyone puzzled by my opening reference, the irresistible, teddy-bear-like koala is probably Australians’ second-favourite animal. Anyone who has seen kangaroos bounding effortlessly across difficult terrain, perfectly evolved to meet the challenges of their environment, will agree that, however cute koalas may be, there is only one perfect symbol of Australian grace and resourcefulness.
Footnote: Further good news for koalas (which are not bears, but marsupials) is the development of an effective vaccine for chlamydia, which has ravaged the population in recent years. Happily, there are no known koala anti-vaxxers. Maybe these non-bears are smarter than the average president.
