The Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) has issued a stark warning regarding the survival of koala populations in Victoria, emphasizing habitat loss as the primary threat. 

Chair of the Australian Koala Foundation, Deborah Tabart, underscored the misconception that koala populations in Victoria are secure. She pointed out that the root cause, habitat destruction, continues to be sidelined despite repeated calls for urgent action.

In an interview with The Wire’s Vanessa Gatica, Chair of the Australian Koala Foundation Deborah Tabart urged for a more proactive approach from government bodies and stakeholders, stressing that effective habitat preservation is essential for ensuring the long-term survival of koalas in Victoria.

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Vanessa Gatica: The Australian Koala Foundation has issued a stark warning regarding the survival of koala populations in Victoria, emphasising habitat loss as the primary threat. Chair of the Australian Koala Foundation, Deborah Tabart, underscore the misconception that koala populations in Victoria are secure, she pointed out that the root cause habitat destruction continues to be sidelined despite repeated calls for urgent action. 

In an interview with the virus, Vanessa Gatica, chair of the Australian Koala Foundation, Deborah Tabart urged for a more proactive approach from government bodies and stakeholders, stressing that effective habitat preservation is essential for ensuring the long term survival of koalas in Victoria. 

What are the main shortcomings of the current Victorian Koala management strategy, and how does it fail to protect koala populations?

Deborah Tabart: It has to be a long answer to that question because when the British settled in Australia, uh, 200 and something years ago, what happened was that the laws that to protect koalas weren’t in place, you know, and so there was a massive fur trade. And so between 1890 and 1930, we actually have the manifests of 8 million skins that went to London and New York for the fur trade. in my book, The Koala manifesto, there are pictures of women in Melbourne wearing koala skin coats, which is shocking when you think about it. And so at the time, the South Australian koalas were shot to extinction, there was only 1000 left in Victoria and the last, uh, shooting occurred in 1927, in Queensland, where they shot nearly one. 1 million more. So in my mind, imagine how many koalas were in this landscape at that time. So the Victorian koalas have never really recovered from that massive slaughter. And what happened was that people started to just pick up koalas and dump them places, often in small little patches where they would just breed up in things. So the Victorian government has always been anxious about koalas being put anywhere because they are very highly invested in logging. So every time there’s a koala in a logging coupe, then everyone gets upset. So in 2011, there was a Senate inquiry and it was deemed that the koalas needed to be protected under federal laws. But the Victorian government at the time in 2012 said, look, we don’t want a listing. We don’t want anything to impede us being able to cut trees down. And then in 2022, the koala was went from vulnerable to endangered and the Victorian government still hasn’t got any legislation.

Vanessa Gatica: Why were Victoria and South Australia excluded from the federal reclassification of koalas to endangered, and what steps are needed to protect their koala populations?

Deborah Tabart: I believe that those two states argued strongly and not in a scientific way. I think they lobbied on behalf of the logging industry to ensure that nothing would get in the way of being able to cut down trees and, um, and the way that they were able to to do that was sort of go, oh, look, there’s lots of koalas there. We don’t have to worry our, our state. We’ve got heaps of koalas, don’t worry. So on our Instagram, I have actually put a bit of a cartoon up to say that if, if there was 400,000 koalas in Victoria right now, that you would see them sitting on the trams, you know, they they are as vulnerable as is all the other koalas in Australia. So, um, I believe that our existing laws are very inadequate. And I think that it’s, um, everything needs to be revised completely.

Vanessa Gatica: How does the proposed koala Protection Act aim to address current issues of affecting koalas, and what additional protection does it offer compared to existing measures?

Deborah Tabart: What it is is when someone who owns koala habitat, and I’m a great supporter of people who own their own land wants to cut down some trees. If those habitats are critical for koala survival, then it would automatically be no, and then that person would have to come up with some way of either minimising the impact or put a strong argument. What happens now is that people put in for an application. By and large it gets rubber stamped and approved, the damage is done and the koalas have no homes. So, the Koala Protection Act would also not have what we call a permit to take. So when a government approves a project, they get them this document that says if you accidentally kill anything while you’re doing your new project, we. Prosecute you. We would take that away. We would say, you have a duty of care to take care of every single koala on your site, and we expect you to. Otherwise you’ll you’ll be fined because under existing law at the moment, all the fines or anyone, you know, if they knock down a habitat, it’s like $2.50. So the developers just add those fines into their into their project costs. So the Koala Protection Act would be very firm about don’t cut the trees down.

Vanessa Gatica: What is the current status of koala populations in Queensland post recent bushfires, and what efforts are underway to aid their recovery?

Deborah Tabart: The Queensland Minister for the environment, um, their office sort of contacted us yesterday. Um, it is my feeling that that the Queensland Government is is the same as the Victorian government. They make it look and sound like they’re doing great things, but really they’re still making approvals that allow destruction. You know, there’s wind farms being approved, there’s coal seam gas, there’s coal mines. Again, it’s a Koala Protection Act was in place. At least it would give both the habitats and the koalas a chance.

Vanessa Gatica: I am Vanessa Gatica for The Wire, speaking with Deborah Tabar, chair of the Australian Koala Foundation.