Koalas that survived Australian bushfires now face threat of logging

Koalas which survived the devastating wildfires that tore across Australia earlier this year could now lose their habitats through logging.

Campaigners and environmentalists have urged the state government of New South Wales to stop cutting down trees until they have a better understanding of how many koalas are in the area.

As many as 30 per cent of koalas were wiped out in the Australian bushfires this year, researchers estimate, and an average of 24 per cent of their habitats are gone.

And an Australian parliamentary inquiry found that if the right support systems are not put in place soon, koalas could be extinct by 2050.

But local conservationist Kailas Wild thinks the threat to the species could be even more pressing.

He told Vice News: "These bushfires completely changed the game.

"I've seen with my own eyes the old growth forest that fires completely obliterated, and the habitat that no longer exists, and it’s really shifted and increased the value of these native forests.

"The fear is that 2050 is an optimistic estimate."

The Australian Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) ordered state logging group the Forestry Corporation to stop cutting down trees in two forests last week, after it found the organisation had broken conservation rules.

Local conservationist group Nature Conservation Council (NCC) praised the move but said the EPA should have moved faster.

EPA chief executive Chris Gambian said: “Forestry Corporation is a government enterprise but it operates like a cowboy outfit with little regard for the law.

“After the fires, this senseless destruction just loads the dice in favour of extinctions. The Forestry Corporation has demonstrated time and again that it cannot be trusted to obey the law.

“The government should go further to protect our forests by declaring a moratorium on native forest logging so wildlife has time to recover after the devastating bushfires...

“If we want koalas and other threatened species to survive into the future we have to stop cutting down their forests. It is that simple."