Usually, when new data questions a decision made two or more years ago, a review occurs—that would be a matter of sound management. Given this, maybe it’s time to apply to the Threatened Species Committees for the Commonwealth and NSW State Governments to review koalas’ ‘endangered’ status.
Here is why…
In February 2022, koala populations in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory were listed as endangered by the Commonwealth Government. Two months later, on May 22, 2022, Koalas were listed as endangered by the NSW Government.
The official reason for listing was that the species had undergone a significant reduction in population size due to a decline in its geographic distribution and habitat quality. However, the Australian Koala Foundation boasts that it “was the result of endless lobbying by the AKF and its team“.
In September 2023, the NSW Government announced the process to create a Great Koala National Park (GKNP), which they claimed was needed to help save the koala from extinction. A year later, the Minister for Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Heritage – Penny Sharpe – announced the results of koala drone survey research within the 176,000-hectare State forest GKNP assessment area. The research by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service produced an estimate of 12,111 koalas.
Interestingly, the figure of 12,111 koalas, which occurred in an area equivalent to ~2% of the habitat where NSW koalas are likely or known to happen, is one and half times more than what the Australian Koala Foundation claimed as the entire population of koalas in NSW and the ACT.
In its 2021 report, the AKF claims that koala populations have declined by 41%, with the total population for NSW and the ACT being between 6,040 and 9,605!
The same NPWS drone research included a survey of ~ 140,000 hectares of National Park that was part of the GKNP study area. It found koala occupancy levels were 6.8% lower in the adjoining National Park (or 63% in the State Forest vs. 59% in the National Park).
This was not mentioned in Penny Sharpe’s press release!
Those in the know believe that NPWS has an unwritten policy of ‘maintaining the mystery’ about National Parks so the conservation focus can remain on other tenures. The absence of these numbers from the Minister’s press release may support this thinking. Minister Sharpe also omitted that the surveyed State forests have been sustainably managed for timber for over 100 years and that over half of the State forest area is exclusively managed for environmental protection.
However, the findings of the NPWS koala survey research are not in isolation.
Unbeknown to many (as it has not been picked up anywhere in the mainstream media), the Commonwealth Government engaged the CSIRO to run a national koala monitoring program. In April 2024, the CSIRO revealed that there are significantly more animals in the wild than earlier estimates carried out by the Australian Koala Foundation. For what it’s worth, the CSIRO’s 2024 National Koala Populations Estimates estimated a population of 224,000 and 524,000 animals in the wild.
The CSIRO 2024 Update of National Koala Population estimates also revealed that in 2022, previous estimates relied on more qualitative methods, such as expert elicitation. This means someone self-identifying as an expert makes an educated guess on koala numbers. This is a real problem, as guessing is a poor substitute for empirical scientific data.
Why is the Government ignoring the science on Koalas?
In May 2024, Dr Brad Law et al. from the NSW Department of Primary Industries Forest Science Group published 7 years of koala acoustic monitoring research data on the NSW north coast. The data was available but ignored by both the Commonwealth and NSW Threatened Species Committees as it did not fit with the political narrative at the time that koalas were in peril and needed ‘saving’.
The research shows that there are plenty of koalas in the extensive tracts of native forest that cover much of the NSW north coast. It also revealed no significant difference between koala occupancy in State Forests and National Parks and that koalas can and do coexist in native forests where selective harvesting occurs.
Furthermore, the research found that the koala meta population remained stable during the seven-year period despite being a tumultuous period for disturbance events, which included the 2017-20 drought, the 2019-2020 bushfires and the 2021-22 floods.
The science on koalas between 2022 and 2024 is now poles apart!
The inconsistencies between the environmental scientists’ stated position on koalas in 2022 and the now available evidence are stark. In 2022, the NSW Threatened Species Scientific Committee concluded that “the only bioregion in NSW to have convincing evidence of a stable population was the New England Tablelands.” The 2024 NPWS drone survey results now show this to be incorrect – with the New England Tablelands results, which showed 13% of the canopy burnt out since the Black Summer fires, a key reason for their decision to lift the koala-threatened species listing from vulnerable to endangered.
With the reduced area based on its consideration, the Committee endorsed the work of Ward et al. (2019), who stated that large areas of forest and woodland within the koala’s range were cleared between 2000 and 2017. Urban expansion was cited as a big factor in population reductions. Again, the Committee quoted the work of others (Clark and Johnston 2016) when the option was available to use other research tools. At the very least, their Committee’s reasoning should have shown a testing of the work on which they relied so heavily. This is particularly so when ‘Clearing of native vegetation’ is listed as a Key Threatening Process under the Biodiversity Conservation Act NSW.
Leaving that aside, there is a real issue with the NSW Government’s annual clearing statistics, as they are an aggregation of data that includes forestry activities other than land clearing.
The koala is a national symbol, and its welfare is an important matter. We humans have a duty of stewardship of the earth for the conservation of all animals. But one must ponder how, over a two-year period, decisions by both the Commonwealth and NSW Threatened Species Committees can be revealed to have been so deficient, with serious misjudgement and errors forming the basis of their respective decisions.
Surely, it is time for a peer review of these decisions and to examine the independence of these all-powerful committees.
