NSW GREENS MP Cate Faehrmann and Coffs Harbour councillor Jonathan Cassell joined a well-attended public gathering in Coramba last week, with local residents condemning ongoing forestry operations in nearby state forests.
Attendees raised their concerns about logging at Mount Coramba, an area within the footprint of the proposed and long-awaited Great Koala National Park (GKNP).
The NSW Labor Government was, yet again, accused of reneging on the promised delivery of the GKNP by local conservation groups, who claim the proposed park becomes increasingly degraded as logging operations continue.
In a statement, Ms Faehrmann told News Of The Area, “The report into the Upper House Inquiry into Koalas, which I chaired, was handed down more than five years ago now and still we are seeing the wholesale destruction of their habitat.
“Worse, the Environment Minister Penny Sharpe was a member of the Inquiry while in opposition, so she knows what’s at stake.
“The people who live here know these forests better than anyone, and they’re not standing by while they’re destroyed.
“They know what’s at stake if we lose our forests, including for future generations if we are to have any hope of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change.”
A member of the NSW Government’s GKNP Community Advisory Panel, Cr Cassell is concerned the timeline for announcing the park is being “deliberately delayed for no clear reason”.
“The scientific assessments are finished, the Advisory Panel has not met since November 2024, and the timeframe for implementation seemed imminent,” he said.
“So, why the hold up?
“Alarmingly, I have heard that the formal declaration of the GKNP may not occur until just before the next election in March 2027.”
Friends of the Orara East State Forest spokesperson Nikki Read said logging currently underway at Mount Coramba is undermining the future park and pushing species like koalas, Glossy Black Cockatoos and the rare Moonee Quassia “closer to extinction”.
“The local communities around the Coffs Harbour and Bellingen districts feel an absolute betrayal by the NSW Premier and I fear that by the time the park is eventually declared, the most ecologically valuable forest will have already been lost,” she said.
Speaking in NSW Parliament last month, Minister for Agriculture Tara Moriarty said the NSW Government remains “totally committed” to creating the GKNP.
“As I and others have outlined a number of times in the House, work is well advanced and underway to create the park, but it is a complicated process,” she said.
“Quite rightly, the Government is engaging with industry, the community, Indigenous groups and others as we work through the process of establishing the boundaries and the park.
“We are also committed to a sustainable [timber] industry going forward, and we will continue to work through those issues in a sensible way.”
Environment Minister Penny Sharpe, speaking in Parliament the same day, acknowledged that “people are frustrated around the timeline” for delivering the GKNP.
“[However] any suggestion that the Government is not committed to it, that there is a broken promise or that it is not doing the work, is simply false,” she said.
By Andrew VIVIAN