Pavey: managing koalas

NPA responds to Pavey comments

Greens Forests spokesperson, Dawn Walker has slammed comments made by the Member for Oxley, Melinda Pavey that more National Parks won't help koalas and criticised her ongoing refusal to support the Great Koala National Park*.

“It is shameful that Melinda Pavey is refusing to support a Great Koala National Park that will go a long way to protecting our iconic koalas on the Mid-North Coast,” said Greens MP Dawn Walker.

“Instead, her ‘solution’ is to allow Forestry Corporation to continue to rip into prime koala habitat and then throw taxpayers’ money at koala hospitals and rehoming services, which are little more than glorified zoos.

“If we are to save koalas on the Mid-North Coast, then we need the Nationals to show some vision and get behind the community’s demands for a Great Koala National Park .

But instead, what we have seen is the National Party cutting huge numbers of staff from National Parks, introducing horrific land clearing laws and doing everything they can to help Forestry Corporation continue to destroy our public native forests.

“It is clear the Nationals are in the pocket of the loggers and desperate to do anything other than create more protected areas for koalas. The only way to get real action to save our koalas is to toss this Government out at the next election.

“In 2017, we shouldn't be logging our public native forests for a handful of jobs in a declining timber industry - we should be preserving them and looking to new economic opportunities in tourism and recreation. Our timber needs should be coming from sustainably managed plantations and alternative fibres, like bamboo and hemp, not our native forests.

“It’s a tragedy that Melinda Pavey continues to ignore the reality that only an end to native forest logging and a Great Koala National Park will halt the decline of koalas on the Mid-North Coast” said Dawn Walker MP.