The Hon Peter Garrett AM MP

Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts

PO Box 6022

House of Representatives

Parliament House

CANBERRA  ACT  2600

Dear Minister

Re: [New South Wales] Recovery plan for the koala (Phascolarctos cinereus)

You will be aware that The Hon. Carmel Tebbutt MP, NSW Minister for Climate Change and the Environment launched the long-awaited NSW Koala Recovery Plan on 30 November 2008. New South Wales is the first state in Australia to have such a plan for koalas.

Friends of the Koala is pleased to see that voluntary wildlife rehabilitation groups are acknowledged responsible parties in the Plan. In that capacity we have offered the Minister our considered comment on the Plan as it impacts on the Northern Rivers of New South Wales and we request information on her intentions in regard to roll-out.

We are now enclosing a courtesy copy of the letter with only one attachment (the current issue of the group’s quarterly newsletter, Treetops) for your information.

In particular we draw your attention to the observations we have made about disease in koalas on the Northern Rivers. We are seriously concerned that koala retrovirus (KoRV) is apparently of so little interest to our Sydney-centric State bureaucrats and politicians and trust the long-term impact of disease on koala population decline is not so lightly treated by the Federal government.

The former Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator the Hon Ian Campbell wrote to the then Member for Page, The Hon. Ian Causley MP in a letter dated 25 August 2006, in which he explained his decision not to list the koalas as a threatened species under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act):

                “You may be aware that a scientific report was recently published on the

                status of a retrovirus associated with the koala. Given this report, I have

                asked the [Threatened Species Scientific] Committee to review the

                conservation status of the koala in two years time.”

We understand that you are still open to future consideration of the status of the koala for possible listing under the Act, at least in regards to the findings of the recent review of the 1998 National Koala Conservation Strategy. It is with this in mind that we draw this matter to your attention.

Yours sincerely

Lorraine Vass

President

11 December 2008

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