Friends of the Koala’s conservation mission requires that we speak out on issues that impact on koalas. There is certainly no shortage of them: private native forestry, logging in state forests, agricultural land practices, urban sprawl, lack of specialist veterinary services, poor understanding of disease, shoddy compliance with legislated protection , and so on.

We also seek opportunities to contribute to policy reform, by way of making submissions to all levels of government, by briefing our elected representatives to ask questions in council or parliament, by providing forums in which knowledge is shared and by participating in forums provided by other organizations.

The past six months has been particularly busy on both the advocacy and the policy reform fronts. The Koala Conservation Conference we mounted in May was finely timed to communicate information to the Federal Minister and to the Threatened Species Scientific Committee for its first meeting to consider the approach to be taken in gathering and assessing new evidence to establish a case to list the koala under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999

The Conference Communiqué was distributed widely. Barb and I also had the opportunity of handing Minister Garrett a copy in Lismore in early July. Also at the Federal level we have responded to the Consultation Draft National Koala Conservation and Management Strategy 2009-2014.

At the State level, we are actively opposing the Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2009 which proposes amending the definition of public land to enable declaration of the national park estate in NSW to be available for public hunting and a scheme for licensing private game reserves.

Imposition of the Motor Sports (World Rally Championship) Blll 2009 under the special legislation provisions deprived us of normal avenues for oppositing the Repco Rally event. We have petitioned the Minister that his conditions of consent to holding the Rally across Kyogle and Tweed shires include as a minimum the recommendations of the reports prepared by Biolonk Ecological Consultants, together with any agreements already made in respect of those recommendations by the promoter and any additional protective measures that might be negotiated by the promoter with local native wildlife groups.

Regionally we responded to Lismore Council’s Draft 2009/10-2012 Management Plan, its Draft Strategic Companion Animals Management Plan 2009 and the Independent Best Planning Practice Review. We also participated in a Koala Workshop for Tweed Shire Councillors and staff.

Development applications for which we have lodged submissions have included apparently unauthorised modification to the existing configuration of the Tucki Quarry; Expansion of Blakebrook Quarry, and an Amended DA and SEE for the Riverside Village Caravan Park at Doonbah in Richmond Valley Shire.

We also wrote to the Department of Lands opposing the proposed closure of a road at Tanglewood in Tweed, followed up three enquiries about tree removals in Lismore and wrote to Forests NSW in regard to the impact of logging operations on koalas in Clouds Creek State Forest, west of Dorrigo.

Submitted by President Lorraine Vass