Government experts failing on koala protection

The NSW government’s decision, to extent time for comment on its koala stategy, has co-incided with koala sightings in Bodalla state forest. One of these is near the recently cleared forest for the Eurobodalla dam, around 10 kilometres north of the known remaining koalas at the northern end of Dignams creek catchment. Bodalla state forest is largely growing on the Murrah soil landscape as are the forests with koalas to the south, down to the Bega river.

The sighting was enabled with a drone engaged by the Coastwatchers Association, as a result of federal funding and approval from Forestry corp. Under forestry’s current approval, they were supposed to undertake a targeted fauna survey for koalas in several state forests including Bodalla and the adjacent Dampier SF. Logging is proposed adjacent to the dam site in Bodalla SF although a logging plan has not been released. However there is no evidence forestry has undertaken koala surveys in Dampier SF. Rather they claim there is no ‘known or potential’ koala habitat.

The sighting was around the start of the white distance line in the map above, which extends the distance between known koalas to around 60 kilometres. The blue horizontal lines indicate the gap between northern and southern areas with koalas in the year 2000. The red lines indicate the probable gap between these koalas now. The ellipses are areas where, in the absence of evidence to suggest otherwise, koala are now extinct.

The koala strategy review, comments now due on 24 May, frequently refers to protecting koalas and asks “What changes should be made to the koala research plan to make sure it delivers research that directly benefits koala conservation?” The current research plan stems from an ‘expert elicitation workshop’ held back in 2018. The aim of the workshop ” was to develop an understanding of the key knowledge gaps impeding the successful management of koala populations in the wild across New South Wales”

For the south coast (KMA3) the biggest threat was seen as fire and the expert/s suggested “Perform a risk assessment for the one isolated population of koalas known in this management area, which are already protected under Flora reserve status. Fire is actively excluded, and rapid response is likely but also critical to their persistence. Is this level of protection going to ensure persistence of koalas in this area?” They go on to suggest research “To understand the role fire plays in koala habitat creation and provision of suitable habitat for koalas. Can we modify marginal habitats for koalas using fire?”

While this level of protection has clearly not been effective, there has always been more than one isolated koala population and there is no evidence to suggest fire plays in koala habitat creation. On logging the expert/s suggest “If koalas do occur in other parts of KMA3 (or do in the future) what is the likelihood, and impact, of various logging scenarios on koalas? To understand how logging practices, past and present, affect koalas”. Hence the so-called koala expert/s propose researching the impacts of logging on the one isolated koala population exposed to this known threat, while they burn the unburnt koala habitat to improve it. Locations of the most recent 800 hectares burnt in the map below.

NPWS – sticking to poor science for koalas

The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, together with Aboriginal fire practitioners and Firestick Alliance members, have undertaken another hazard reduction burn in Bermaui SF. According to the Bega News, the get together was ” being run to connect people to Country and to make Country healthy, it will also help to reduce naturally accumulated fuel loads in the park and contribute to hazard reduction activities.”

The theory that a lack of regular fire makes forest unhealthy was put forward by former NSW Minister for Primary Industries, Energy, Mineral Resources and State Development, Ian Macdonald back in 2009.
Based on advice from Forests NSW, the Mininster suggested “It is also likely that a lack of regular low intensity fire induces secondary changes such as increased acidity and aluminium availabilty that are considered to be harmful to the roots of mature trees.”

More likely and noting there has never been a requirement for forestry or the NPWS to consider any aspect of soil fertility, these outcomes are a result of reduced biodiversity and associated ecological processes, that previously prevented increases in acidity and aluminium availabilty.

The NPWS and forestry both share a long-term commitment to burning and are both opposed to management aimed at restoring ecological processes to increase soil fertility. A recent report from the ANU titled – Review of koala habitat assessment criteria and methods – suggests ” Landscapes previously overlooked as good koala habitat, in part because of their rocky, low fertility soils, are now known to support healthy and growing koala populations (e.g. the Monaro region of NSW). “

Unfortunately there is no reference to the fact that these koalas were translocated from Victoria and those translocated to coastal forests around the same time all died. Although it does point out that “plants adapted to low-fertility environments usually grow more slowly, but their concentration of foliar nutrients can be as high as plants growing in areas with higher nutrient availability (Chapin 1980) “.

Given koalas in the Monaro region were being found malnourished and dehydrated prior to the fires, it’s hard to avoid the possibility that past environmental circumstances may have been extreme enough to remove all of the original koalas. The most recent and arguably more realistic NSW government advice on the southern tablelands koalas indicates ” koala populations scattered across this region in sparse patches” and “Koalas are mostly found in rugged, infertile woodlands and forests in this area, probably a consequence of land clearing and agricultural development in the fertile flats. Koalas in some areas chew the bark of Eucalyptus mannifera trees to access sodium in an otherwise sodium-poor environment.”

Koala strategy review – a mixture of messages

The NSW government’s koala strategy review now has two parts, the first an invitation only summit, to be held in Sydney on March 22. More recently a discussion paper, with 23 questions, was released with comments due by April 26. According to Environment Minister Penny Sharpe koalas are “one of the most iconic animals to the people of New South Wales and hold immense cultural significance to First Nations people.” The idea is to “make sure every voice is heard through this process.”

Of course, in practical terms being heard can only happen at the summit, where the focus is probably about positive outcomes from government funded activities. The written word, required to make comment on the discussion paper, isn’t heard. So it seems unlikely summit invitees will be presented with the same questions posed in the discussion paper. This a time saving issue given a truly detailed response to the questions could be the subject of several PHDs.

For example the first question is a doubled barrelled one asking “ 1. Do you think the goal of doubling the number of koalas in New South Wales by 2050 provides a sound foundation for the NSW Government’s approach to koala conservation into the future? If not, what do you think the goal should be?”

While a simple answer to the first is no, because doubling the number of koalas requires an adequate understanding of why there is only half the number they’re aiming for. An answer to the second seems to require an adequate understanding of how government ESFM has reduced koala numbers and what to do about changing that. In that case the goal should be ensuring management has a sound scientific foundation, something they believe already exists.

On the far south coast it is 4 months since the 7,000 hectare+ Coolagolite fire, but there is no information from the government’s koala surveys. While the contractors are said to have post fire scat detection experience, this hasn’t reduced the time required. However, it is apparent that many trees were either directly killed by the fire, cut down or died in the following weeks due to a lack of water. A so called cultural burn was undertaken on December 8 in a unburnt area of Biamanga NP, adjacent to the burnt area.

Since then the Natural Resources Commission called for and had comments sent, on their CIFOA monitoring program. The program is attempting to find evidence that the environmental goals government agencies set for logging operations, have been achieved. Of course, given the CIFOA lacks a sound scientific foundation, any instances of Forestry Corporation’s lack of compliance could be blamed for umet goals.

More recently and due to the CIFOA lacking a sound scientific foundation, in this case ineffective surveys for greater gliders. Bega Valley Shire Council has decided to help the logging industry gain easier access to private forests on RU2 land. The map above shows local areas of RU2 land (red outline) with an arrow showing the stating point and direction of the fire. As indicated in the google maps image below and excluding the wetter gullies, all of the RU2 forest at the end of the arrow, including the shotgun club was seriously burnt during the Coolagolite fire.

As it turns out, the intermittent wetland, bottom right, where most of the lead from the shotgun club ends up, sits on top of probable acid-sulphate soils. A complaint about Bega Valley Shire Council’s regulation of the shotgun club has been passed onto them, as an addendum to the previously forwarded catchment document.

Ending regulated logging, confirms more forest protection required

While there has been much celebration around the end of native forest logging in WA and Victoria, some are more cautious. In Victoria the ABC quoted Environmental Justice Australia special counsel and environmental lead Danya Jacobs saying the “move was a step in the right direction, but more needed to be done to protect endangered species.”

She went on to express the concern “that native forest logging could continue under another name, rebranded as disaster or bushfire management and salvage operations.” and added “We’re calling on the government to close these loopholes to ensure that disaster logging does not continue and take the place of native forest logging.”

Hundreds of trees were cut down or bulldozed during the Coolagolite fire. The tree stump below is a Woollybutt that was cut down after the fire, following Bega Valley shire council’s successful application for State government funding. This enabled council to hire contractors for three weeks to ‘tidy up fire affected vegtation’.

While this logging was suppose to be along council controlled roads in the Murrah flora reserves. This and other trees were along the access road into the Bermagui shotgun club. The purpose appears to be discouraging koalas from going near a development council supports.

Overall, the main focus of the fire fighting effort was to burn and bulldoze as much forest as possible. Although as indicated in the following shot, things didn’t go completely to plan. While stopping regulated logging is positive, replacing it with unregulated fire fighting is not.

Koala drinks, eats and stars on youtube.

As the koala had been drinking water from an artificial source for 4 months. Some supplimentary food was left for it. The leaves are from a forest redgum, planted for koalas early this century.

Initially the koala snubbed the leaves and as the video records just had a drink . Four days later it returned and ate the outer tips.

Another four days later it returned again, spending sometime eating most of the remaining leaves, before heading up the tree for the night.

Coming down the tree the next day, it finished of the rest of the leaves it wanted. Forest redgum supported enough koalas to sustain the human fur trade until about 1910. Around that time the remaining koalas all died as a result of malnutrition and associated illnesses. Koalas require trees growing in more fertile soils What our generally evil governments and others don’t want to believe is that all of their management reduces soil fertility. The only way to increase soil fertility is to introduce the native species that evolved to maintain soil fertility, kept forest healthy and prevent koala extinction

NEFA case confuses organ grinder with monkey

The ruling of the Land and Environment court, to dismiss the North East Forests Alliance (NEFA) attempt to influence the logging of koala habitat in Braemar and Myrtle State Forests, was a predicable outcome. The two main problems with NEFA’s approach was first, to rely on the notion that either the Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approval (CIFOA) and/or the EPA (the organ grinder) post-fire logging measures reflect the principles of ecologically sustainable forestry management (ESFM). Second was the idea that Forestry Corporation (the monkey) doesn’t rort these loose rules, particulary soil issues, to get the outcome they prefer.

Next year will mark the 30^th anniversary of the Murrah/Mumbulla resident’s successful efforts, based on soil science, to stop logging in three compartments, now in the Murrah Flora Reserves because of the few remaining koalas. Unlike the conservation movement, Forestry Corporation understand the science behind this successful effort. This is why when they returned to continue logging during 2005, community opposition led them to suspend the operation.

The 2007 determination of the NSW Scientific committee to reject a nomination to list these koalas as endangered, was based largely on koala records that forestry had fraudulently entered into the Bionet atlas. However the committee did acknowledge development, logging and dieback as the key threats to koalas.

What conservationists don’t understand is that dieback is associated with the redistribution of water at a sub-catchment scale due to dispersible sub-soils. This is why koalas appreciate additional water and forests with Bellminer associated dieback have surface soils that are moister, so they are suitable for lantana and giant watervine. Tree roots go much deeper and in the zone of dispersible and dispersed sub-soils.

What koalas need – will they ever get it ?

Due to the reduction of tree leaf water content, this koala has visited the water station on thirteen out of 20 days. The location is a coupe that was logged in 1980, but the reduction in leaf water content, associated with reduced soil fertility, including water holding capacity, isn’t constrained to logged coupes. Soil erosion and dispersion from logging means the species that have mostly grown back are black forest oak and silver-top ash a monocalyptus, an occasional koala feed tree. The tree in the background is a woollybutt, a symphyomyrtus which is the main preferred feed tree for koalas. The koala has had a few of brief feeds on this tree during its visits to drink, but the species doesn’t grow back after logging and the leaves won’t grow back due to the lack of water in the soil.

While the Forestry corporation is the main culprit, its state government regulators also ignore the long-term negative impacts of logging and burning on soils, particulary erosion, dispersion and compaction. While the conservation movement oppose logging, many believ believe everything grows back and many support the NPWS burning critical koala habitat.

The Australian Labor Party has rejected calls to end native forest logging because the CFMEU and AWU says environmentalists are ignoring forestry workers. This may also be because of an unsubstantiated belief that everything grows back, however none of these groups actually have any credible data on what grows back after logging. The ALP’s compromise is to re-write the 1992 National Forest Policy statement (NFPS). The problem is that the state governments have never complied with the NFPS because like the Regional Forestry Agreements, they are not legally binding.

The idea is to specify an increase in plantations in the NFPS, even though pine plantations will generally do best on relatively fertile soils where native forests have recently been cleared. Without some of the fungi and microorganisms found in native forests, the growth of plantation trees will be very slow. The Sustainable Australia party say they are the only party that puts the environment first. One of their policies is to ‘Restore failed plantations back to native forest’. This policy also seemingly based on a belief that native tree species will grow.

The problem with all of these ideas is that they based on a poor understanding of the fact that Australian soils generally have quite low fertility. This is mostly due to Australia being the oldest continent on earth with the oldest rocks. Hence and apart from a few places, soil fertility in forests is dependent on ecosystem processes, particulary those provided by ecosystem engineers, the little diggers like potoroos and bandicoots. Add logging, burning and bulldozing to the loss of ecosystem processes and soil fertility can only reduce.

Currently National Parks are managed by forestry’s regulators, who stand up in court and claim logging is sustainable when conditions are adhered to. This is a very low bar and the only apparent difference between production forest and NP management is that the latter don’t cut down as many trees. In many instances the NP has been logged, but NP management – mostly broad acre burning, doesn’t consider that reality.

Re-writing the NFPS or putting logged forests into NP doesn’t help koalas, because they need functioning ecosystems to maintain soil fertility. Clearing native forest for more plantations won’t help koalas either. The Legalise Cannabis party’s proposal for farming industrial hemp does enable the end of logging and the potential to restore forests for both carbon sequestation and koala survival. Hemp made invading Australia possible and if there was a commitment it could replace all timber products.

The need sequester carbon both in soils and trees has never been greater and understanding both the difference between monocalyptus and symphyomyrtus and the need for more research on how they respond to climate change should, along with appropriate management, be a priority for koalas and the planet.

The lack of water – a specific threat to koalas

With very little rain over the past few months, a koala drinking water from an artificial source confirms it is getting very dry. Although an official drought is yet to be declared, these declarations are based on the impacts on agriculture, rather than what native species have to suffer.

This otherwise healthy looking koala visited the water station over two nights, climbing and browsing the tree in the back ground on both occasions. According to the Department of Planning and Environment (DoP&E) website, threats to koalas in the South Coast Koala Management Area include a ‘lack of knowledge about these low-density populations and the threats they face’.

While the DoP&E do acknowledge ‘canopy dieback across a range of plant species’ as a threat to koalas. This threat is currently yet to fully emerge, but this koala does tend to confirm that water content in leaves has reduced.

The ongoing lack of knowledge stems from a desire to believe past logging and ongoing burning does not reduce the water available to trees. Perhaps when the DoP&E can acknowledge the only management they support plays a significant role in further degrading koala habitat, the chances of keeping koalas alive in the wild will be enhanced.

Hapless governments advised by hopeless public servants, a bad combination

After some delays, this week the latest draft document on local land management issues, retitled “Environmental surveys, management and land degradation in the Murrah catchment”, will be sent to relevent parties. Among other things, in particular how hopeless state and local governments are at managing the environment, it alludes to how plans for future logging and forest management generally, will be challanged.

Top of the list of hopeless state agencies has to be the poorly named Environment Protection Authority. Rather than protection, its major roll would seem to be ensuring broad scale land degradation is OK. This attitude is much like the federal ROBO debt fiasco. Where public servents dream up really dumb ideas and stupid politicians fall over themselves to support it.

With little rain over the past couple of months and not much prospect of substantial falls in the short term. The NPWS has continued its works to protect koalas from fire for the next decade. It would appear that they are yet to cotton on to the fact that weather conditions are the biggest factor behind uncontrollable fires, rather than fuel loads. So their chances of stopping a fire under blowup conditions are at best remote and at worst reflect a delusional mind set, much like the flat-earthers.

One day they may eventually understand that their planned burns result in the environment drying at a faster rate, with a negative impact on all native species, including koalas.

Helping koalas – not a NPWS priority

Yesterday, the NPWS called the police to have me removed from an area of the Murrah flora reserves in Murrah state forest, so they could burn it. The 330 hectare burn is adjacent to four koala records from acoustic surveys undertaken in the past few years. The burning crew arrived in 16 large 4×4 utes, most of which are in the photo below.

While koalas have recently been listed as endangered in NSW. Approval for the burn comes from the Bega Valley Bushfire committee’s 2018 bushfire management plan. It is reasonable to assume the intention of the NPWS is to burn all of the areas planned for burning, prior to a new plan for the whole south coast. Much of Murrah state forest was burned during the Badja fire and the area being burnt is adjacent to forest in Biamanga NP that was burnt.

Compartments in the area were last logged in the early 1990’s and a subsequent land degardation study found the logging had resulted in large areas of sheet erosion.

As a consequence of the soil loss and distubance eucalyptus regeneration has been poor and most of the regrowth is black forest oak. This species is frequently the only tree species that regenerates after logging in these forests due to the reduction in soil fertility. Like wattles, black forest oak has bacteria on its roots that enable the takeup of atmospheric nitrogen that increases soil fertility over long time periods. The oaks also drop their needles that feed micro-organisms and fungi that are largely responsible for making nutrients available to plants. The needles also assist is retaining soil water content by reducing evaporation.

In a forty year old stand, forest oak needles have been found to weigh 6 kilograms per square metre. Extrapolating to 30 year old stands, the weight of needles comes to 45 tonnes per hectare. The burning is likely to consume most of this litter and produce up to 29,700 tonnes of CO2 in the process. As the average Australian produces about 22.4 tonnes of CO2 per annum. The burn could produce CO2 equivalent to that produced by 1,326 Australians in a year.

One of the actions proposed by the recently formed federal koala recovery team is to “Regionally assess the feasibility, risks and cost-effectiveness of fire management options that seek to deliver long-term, strategic and landscape scale enhancement of the extent, and quality of current and future suitable habitat across tenures.”

While It is apparent that the NPWS’s Narooma district believes actions aimed to help koalas don’t apply to them. We are yet to see if the newly formed Far South Coast bushfire committee holds similar views.

Koalas like other species -weathering human mismanagement

With the three years of La Nina coming to an end, research has confirmed they were as result of the 2020/21 bushfires in eastern Australia. The female koala in the photo has been around since the fires and while we cannot be sure whether the weather has enabled her to occupy the particular forests, including trees at the back of where I live. On the four occasions she has be caught on camera, the trees she has used have all been different. Only time will tell if predictions of a dryer winter and spring eventuate could further reduce the number of suitable trees.

Similarly, the recent appearance of ‘song-meter’ koala records in the following map from Bionet, could also be a consequence of the prolonged wetter that normal weather. Interestingly, the first acoustic surveys were given a location accuracy of 200 metres. However, the most recent records from the environment department, that make up the bulk of records in the map are given an accuracy of 10 meters. There are also some from the so-called community surveys that were previously given an accuracy 10,000 meters, but these have also been reduced to 10 meters. Publicly available records from the RGB-SAT surveys are yet to appear, because they determine where logging can happen.

Forestry corporation have also recorded an increase in all terrestrial species they have been monitoring, as indicated in the following chart reported in the Bega District News. The WWF have reported a similar result in the Southeast NP.

Of course this hasn’t stopped them burning areas that weren’t burned during the fires, but there isn’t any available research on the outcomes for animals from these fires.

National koala recovery team initiates 9,000 hectare koala habitat burn, on steep slopes

Less than a year after koalas were rediscovered in the area, a massive fire has been lit in the Byalbo wilderness and adjacent areas in Victoria.  The joint effort is assumedly supported by Victorian and NSW representatives on the recently established National koala recovery team.

A suggested total of 7,428 hectares is being burnt in the Byalbo wilderness and 1,457 hectares across the Victorian border northwest of Tubbut. According to the NSW Department of Planning and Environment’s ‘Guidelines to reduce the impact of planned burns on koala populations’

Planned burns may help maintain koala habitat by:

• encouraging growth of koala feed trees

• maintaining appropriate soil environments for koala feed trees

• reducing mid-storey competition for nutrients and water.

The claims under the term ‘may help’ are not referenced because they have no scientific basis. Hence the “guidelines are a policy initiative, rather than a regulatory obligation”.

Meanwhile on the south coast, the NPWS have undertaken another burn in Mimosa rocks NP. The 250 hectares burnt so far is part of the 2019 plan to burn several hundred more hectares in the Murrah flora reserves. Areas to be burnt in Murrah SF have apparently been extended, seemingly because the areas originally planned for, were burnt during the 2021 Badja fire.

The Department of Planning and Environment and Local Land Services represent the New South Wales Government on the recently established National koala recovery team. 

The WWF is also on the team and they suggest “Without stronger protection, koala populations are on a very slippery slope towards extinction by 2050 in eastern Australia.” Given the National koala recovery team’s idea about stronger koala protection seems remarkably similar to business as usual, their job seems to be making the slopes slippier.

Degrading koala habitat-NPWS get gold star

The NPWS appears to be again preparing to undertake a broad acre burn of critical koala habitat in Mumbulla SF. They don’t respond to questions about their local forest management. However their statewide guide ‘Considering koalas in planned burns’ provides the following misleading information.

Within koala habitat, well-planned burning provides a means to:

• reduce the intensity of a wildfire, if one occurs 

• reduce the extent, intensity and frequency of uncontrolled, high severity wildfires

• create patches in the landscape that are less likely to support a high intensity wildfire.

Planned burns may help maintain koala habitat by:

• encouraging growth of koala feed trees

• maintaining appropriate soil environments for koala feed trees

• reducing mid-storey competition for nutrients and water.

On the first three suggestions, the Badja fire did eventually come into the north western corner of Mumbulla SF on Mumbulla mountain, a week or so after Cobargo and Quaama were engulfed by the fire storm. Apart from post logging and a few small fires, the largest fire in Mumbulla SF started from a logging bark dump in 1980.

Red ellipse approximates burning area, where there are recent community koala records but the NPWS don’t put these in the Bionet atlas. The red and blue arrows point to recent records from people who do support their management,

The NPWS fire history for the area incorrectly attributes this fire to a lightning strike. A wildfire is likely to be driven by strong winds. The Badja fire was driven by ‘foehn like’ winds that didn’t get past Mumbulla mountain. The 1980 fire spread to circular shape, suggesting a similar lack of wind, until a cool change set it in a northerly direction. The fire was stopped with a blackburn from the Murrah river and roads around where the latest burn is proposed. 

If the same conditions that greatly increased the fire threat west of Mumbulla mountain were prevailing at the time of the 1980 fire, a blackburn would not have stopped it.

The is no evidence to demonstrate that “Planned burns may help maintain koala habitat by: encouraging growth of koala feed trees” On “maintaining appropriate soil environments for koala feed trees”. A recent Natural Resources Commission report titled ‘ Insights for NSW forest outcomes and management” indicates –

“Post-fire recovery of soil organic carbon was estimated to be around 60 percent after 20 years, with full recovery after around 75 years. These recovery estimates do not account for additional bushfires during this time, and there is a risk that some areas could enter a cycle of declining soil organic carbon if subjected to repeated fire events and/or other disturbances such as grazing, timber harvesting or land clearing.”

Adequate soil organic carbon is an essential requirement for maintaining appropriate soil environments for koala feed trees. With this carbon comes Calcium, that is critical for reducing sub-soils dispersion in coastal soils and the associated forest dieback. 

All fires reduce soil fertility and on the north coast, where soils are generally more fertile for koalas, research indicates “The modelling demonstrates that koala habitat suitability is lower where there have been more frequent fire events.”

Little wonder the local NPWS have difficulty justifying their management of critical koala habitat.

Koala recovery plan, meaningless rhetoric without management to reverse declining forest health.

For the third time the NSW labor party will be supporting a Great Koala National Park proposal in the upcoming NSW election. According to an ABC report ” . . . Opposition environment spokeswoman Penny Sharpe said the first thing Labor would do is bring together a koala summit to change the NSW koala strategy to a species recovery plan.”

While the usual support and objections have been raised, a species recovery plan requires an understanding of the threat to NSW forests generally as indicated in the report ‘ Koala conservation status in New South Wales‘. ” . . . In addition to population loss and consequent range contraction in western parts of the koala’s range in NSW, and the impacts arising from the 2019/20 fire season, not yet taken into account are the many hundreds of thousands of hectares of otherwise unburnt koala habitat that have additionally been rendered unsuitable for koalas through water‐stress leading to leaf‐browning and loss of preferred browse species.“

In the 24 years since the first ‘leaf-browning’ event on the south coast, very little has been learnt about the processes leading to die-back. Rather, the conservation movement do not believe forestry and its regulators collude to ignore the reasons behind obvious negative changes to forests. Probable current examples can be found in Forestry logging plans for Bulga State forest on the north coast and South Brooman State Forest on the south coast. Both of these logging plans refer to the potential for koalas in the compartments and both of them suggest soils in the compartments are not dispersible.

Soil samples taken from Compartment 2001 in Bermagui State Forest after evidence of koalas was not found thereby allowing logging to undertaken during 2011. Further details are in the brief report, but samples A and B are from 100mm and 200mm deep respectively within the area that was logged. Sample C is from a roadside cutting, where forestry generally take their soil samples. Exposed soils on cuttings or elsewhere are less dispersible because Sodium has usually been ‘washed’ from the soil, reducing dispersion potential.

The interpretation of soil disturbance from logging is focused on surface soils. However, the soil chemistry analysis provided to the EPA 28 years ago, identified increasing soil dispersion potential with soil depth. The roots of large trees occupy the whole soil profile, and until the government can prove otherwise, the reduction in upslope sub- soil Water Holding Capacity is why they turn brown during dry weather and drought and why BMAD is always downslope.

The EPA’s limited protocols for the detection of dispersible soils “must involve the approved soil assessor – (and) field investigations and inspections as the approved soil assessor considers necessary.” So if the approved assessor (a forester) doesn’t think its necessary, they don’t have to do it. Should they be undertaken a written determination of field investigations is also required, using the approved soil testing method using ” . . . aggregates from each layer of soil that will be disturbed by the proposed forestry operation within the operational area.”

The focus on surface soils makes these investigations pointless and until this attitude changes and threats can begin to be mitigated, there will be no recovery of koalas and forest health will continue its downhill slide.

2023 – the good, bad and ugly prospects for koalas

With the new year comes three potential approaches to habitat management for the last few koalas on the south coast. The preferred or good approach and least likely is real Ecologically Sustainable Forest Management (ESFM), broadly outlined in the Future Forest Scenarios report produced for the Natural Resources Commission. The authors of this report suggest ” the current state of futures-thinking across most of Australian organisations and society is not far above Level A”. Level A is a ‘past driven culture’ with a limited capacity for forward thinking. Increasing the capacity for forward thinking requires a scientifically based, cross tenures approach and represents the best chance for koalas to survive in the wild.

The photos above and below are 500 metres and 16 hours apart on the same day and along the same private property access road. While we can’t be absolutely sure if it’s the same koala, it probably is. Getting to the second location meant passing three trees where a koala was sighted in the past year or so, including one where a koala had spent four days. On this occassion a few pellets were found under one tree about 50 metres upslope from the second photo. Government koala surveys are all based on a 500 metre grid, so they could be finding pellets or hearing calls from the same koala at different locations, although this koala seems likely to be a female.

The second or bad option and more likely is regular burning, as supported by local koala experts, former and very dishonest Senior Threatened Species Officer Chris Allen, some tradional owners and former Forester Vic Jurskis. Their hypothesis is based on the historically incorrect notion that the traditional owners burnt everywhere on a regular basis and this kept forests free from fire. However their theories differ because Chris believes burning everywhere will increase koala habitat and Vic believes it will keep koala numbers down by making forests healthier.

Leaving aside the lack of any scientific information supporting their beliefs, recent research on the north coast concluded ” . . .The modelling demonstrates that koala habitat suitability is lower where there have been more frequent fire events.”

The third option and most likely is the NSW government’s idea of ESFM, the ugly business as usual approach, more logging. Should this outcome eventuate, the uncertainty about the legality of Forestry Corporation’s failure to understand its legislated requirements under the Coastal IFOA and the Protection of the Environment Operations Act, will form the basis of community concerns and opposition.

Forestry breaks koala drought – irruption unlikely

After more than a decade Forestry corporation has found a koala in the Eden region. According to the BIONET database, the koala was identified in a photo a month or so ago during pre-logging surveys. The location appears to be in Compartment 265 in Yambulla State forest, about six kilometres west of the Princes highway and 1 kilometre north of the Victorian border.

Compartment 265 was first subjected to integrated logging in 1977 and the alternate coupes subsequently logged during 1996. Most recently a ‘thinning’ operation was undertaken during 2015 in the first coupes logged. A harvesting plan is yet to be released, although it seems reasonable to have some uncertainty about whether the photo represents a post fire irruption of koalas, predicted by former forestry koala expert Vic Jurskis.

The last time a koala was identified at this tree, in the Murrah flora reserves, was back in February this year. We can’t be certain if it’s the same koala, or if it is, where it has been for the past 10 months. We can be certain the NSW government doesn’t care.

Interestingly and as indicated in the 2015 thinning plan, Forestry’s recent koala record is in forests growing on Bega batholith adamellite that has soils of generlly very low fertility. However, it is also right on the western boundary of slightly more fertile Adaminaby group sediments, also found in the Murrah flora reserves.

Forestry’s closest koala records come from 1975 and 1992, are 7 and 11 kilometres to the east repectively and are also on Adaminaby group sediments. This geology extends down to Mallacoota, 20 km to the south, where some of the small population of translocated koala survived the bushfires.

So it will be interesting to see the HP and whether any other surveys have been undertaken, either confirming a koala irruption or otherwise.

Koala report – not a whole of government approach

The Natural Resources Commission (NRC) has released a report titled “Protection of koalas in the Murrah Flora Reserves Project evaluation. Advice to the Environmental Trust – Final report December 2021”. The report focuses on the $2.5 million grant to the NSW Forestry Corporation “to deliver the Protection of Koalas in Murrah Koala Reserves (the Reserves) project over four years.” The grant came from the Environmental Trust, that are using funds from the NSW Waste Levy, managed by the NSW Environment Protection Authority.

In brief, the NRC found the objectives of the project were achieved although ” . . . the extent to which the project will lead to improved longer-term outcomes for the local koala population and Aboriginal cultural heritage is not clear.”
The project did nothing to improve the lot for koalas because the government fails to understand and mitigate the primary threats behind the decline of koala habitat quantity and quality.

Bell Miner Associated Dieback (BMAD) was listed as a key threstening process in 2008, one year after government scientists acknowledged extensive canopy dieback, associated with dry weather and drought is a threat to south coast koalas. A 2006 review of BMAD literature indicated ” . . . There is evidence that total evapotranspiration in regrowth forests exceed that in old growth forests or forests dominated by older trees. This, in turn results in reductions in water yields from regrowth forests (e.g. Cornish 1993: Cornish & Vertessy 2001; Vertessy et al., 2001). Carmel Flint (pers comm., Feb. 2005) argued that a ‘regrowth-induced drought’ may affect the concentration of foliar nutrients (i.e., resulting in increased concentrations due to decreased water availability, or alternatively resulting in increased environmental stress). While these hypotheses may seem relevant to the BMAD problem, we are not aware of any research directly associated with regrowth forests, BMAD and hydrological factors.”

Another review undertaken in 2017 confirmed ” . . . The four main understorey species identified as nesting habitat for Bell miners (e.g. Lantana camara, Cissus antarctica, C. hypoglauca and Pittosporum undulatum; [Hastings, 2012; Lambert et al., 2016; Stone et al., 2008]) are fire-sensitive,and fire frequency is a primary determinant of their distribution in the landscape and prominence in the understorey (A. Baker, pers. comm.).”

All of these species require moist locations, that are less likely to burn. Yet there is still no consideration of post logging changes to hydrology, particularly what happens to the water when the trees no longer constrain its movement, or transpire it, or the physical and chemical changes to soils given ecological processes are largely eliminated. The report refers to BMAD mapping on the north coast, but there is no reference to reporting of bell miner occurence undertaken as part of the long-term south coast koala surveys. Rather the map below shows locations since 2013 of bell miners (blue dots) and lyre birds (red triangles), also recorded during the koala surveys, but none of the records are from the so called community koala surveys.

The northern records are from forestry’s pre-logging surveys in Bermagui SF during 2018. The center arrow points to compartments in Murrah SF where forestry identified bell miners in 2021. However the bottom arrow points to Lizard road in Mumbulla SF where forestry didn’t identify bell miners during surveys in 2021, even though they are there and assumedly nesting in what Forest Typing (Baur, 1965) could describe as ‘viney scrub’.

Below is an example of viney scrub in Cpt 3027 of Bodalla SF where it’s said to occupy 52.9 hectares. According to the Harveting Plan – ” Rainforest – Has been assessed as a risk that Cool Temperate and Depauperate (Dry) occur in the field. May require further investigation#. The rainforest shown on the HPOM has been modified during planning. The FT must field verify the extent and mark exclusions during mark-up. The areas assessed as Depauperate (Dry) do not require 20m exclusion. These areas must be noted appropriately in the FT/HC notes section of the plan.”

Depauperate actually means poor, or in the case of ecosystems ‘is lacking in numbers or variety of species, often because it lacks enough stored chemical elements and resources required for life’. The HP also indicates – “Regeneration Promotion: Some of the moist gullies are dominated with vine which is encroaching up the ridges and will most likely inhibit regeneration after harvest if left untreated. The FT/HC must identify such areas and ensure that adequate seed trees are retained in these areas (and target trees containing vine for removal). Utilise harvesting machinery to disturb the soil, to create a seedbed for regeneration and inhibit further vine spread.” We could look forward to evidence forestry’s management works, but that seems unlikely.

The petition, crap and a rat – synchronicity at work?

The petition to end native logging has been noted by the NSW legislative assembly.

Supportive members included the member for Ballina Ms Tamara Smith suggesting – ” . . . Transitioning the native forestry industry to 100 per cent sustainable plantations by 2024, placing moratoriums on public native forest logging until a regulatory framework is developed, protecting high conservation-value forest through gazettal in the national parks estate and banning the use of native forest materials as biomass fuel I would have thought, and we think, are the absolute minimum next steps. I will focus on the biomass aspect of the petition.”

While stopping native forest logging is a start. The issue here is that extinctions are happening in National Parks as well, because of the poor management. The broad acre ‘enhanced burning program’ in National Parks produces far more CO2 than a less destructive method of targetted fuel reduction that uses native forest materials as biomass fuel and returns carbon to soils.

Ms Smith also suggests “With the climate crisis escalating, there is an urgent need to protect and enhance those critical functions of our native forest estates.” I couldn’t agree more, but conservationists seem to believe protection from logging automatically includes enhancing the critical functions of our native forest estate. Unfortunately that doesn’t happen and conservationists on the south coast have opposed management aimed at enhancing critical forest functions for over twenty years.

Unsupportive members included the member for Clarence Mr Christopher Gulatis suggesting ” . . . We have plantation timbers and we also have native forests. The reason the forests were created in the first instance was to provide a resource for the inhabitants to build their houses and to construct this city. Parliament House is constructed from timber from our forests. That was the whole purpose of them, and still is. We want affordable housing, but where is the construction material going to come from? Members opposite talk about affordable housing, but how will it be provided if we do not cut down trees? Forestry Corporation plants four million seedlings every year to replace the trees it cuts. If that is not carbon sequestration, what is? It is a joke when members do not look at the evidence and the facts. ” and “Five billion native species were killed in a hot fire because those national parks did not have the resources to be managed effectively.” Thankfully Mr Gulatis won’t be standing for the next election.

Then there was Dubbo member Mr Dugald Saunders (Minister for Agriculture and Minister for Western New South Wales) saying ” . . . I will clarify a few misconceptions. First, logging does not occur in State forests; selective harvesting occurs in State forests. The Environment Protection Authority is in charge of activating the regulations around that, and it does so regularly. The sawlog part of a tree is not used for biomass production; it is the roots, the bark and the other parts that cannot be used for anything apart from chipping, burning or pulping.” Mr Saunders misconceptions speak for themselves.

Also speaking against was member for Oxley Mrs Melinda Pavey suggesting ” . . . Timber mills in my electorate employ some of the most decent, hardworking and, may I say, less-educated people, as well as many from our Indigenous communities.”

The black rat, a feral predator that is protected from foxes and cats where they latter are excluded.

Meanwhile on the south coast, the Bega District News reported that with funding from the NSW Government’s Saving our Species program, the Department of Planning and Environment are undertaking the first fauna surveys in the Southeast Forest NP since the early 1990’s.

According to senior threatened species officer Dr Joss Bentley, the funding provides the opportunity to collect 1,000 predator scats and employ DNA analysis to see what’s in them. Exactly why a doctorate is required to pick up crap along roads isn’t clear, when less educated people, NPWS rangers for example, should be capable of doing it. The scats are then to be sent to Melbourne for the DNA analysis with the hope of of confirming “if the long-footed potoroo still exists in their known habitat.”

According to Dr Bentley “Either way the results will still give us an excellent understanding of the animals currently living in these forests and complement our existing understanding of species distribution, which will help inform the south coast’s first rewilding project.” Of course if evidence of only one long-footed potoroo is found, it could be the last one. As for helping the very poorly planned rewilding project, scat surveys were undertaken in Mumbulla SF in the early 1980‘s.

They found the black rat (Rattus rattus), that was introduced with the first invasion fleet, was rare at the time because “only three individuals of the Black Rat Rattus rattus were detected, and then only in the third winter after the fire.”

Currently there seems to be quite a few black rats in Mumbulla SF. So if one were trying to ‘rewild’ a species like the smokey mouse, it would be sensible to survey for predators that can get through a fence, designed to exclude foxes and cats.

Maintaining logging and environmental values, without credible science

Much like NSW Liberal Matt Kean’s claims of doubling the koala population, the majority of politicians on the future for the logging industry inquiry claim that “All things considered, the committee believes that a balance can be struck – that sustainable forestry harvesting operations can coexist with environmental values.”

The committee quote Mr Vic Jurskis, Forest Ecologist, Silviculturist and Researcher and member of South East Timber Association, that: “[mild fire regimes] is the only thing that can make forest management in general, and the timber industry, sustainable. … Australia’s ecosystems depend on frequent mild fire, not just for fire safety but to maintain their health and productivity.”

This is the same unscientific drivel that the Koala Action Network supports. The fact is that forest ecosystems were here long before humans. The traditional owners learned how to exploit the environment without destroying it by ensuring ecological processes were maintained.

Despite being a significant threat to biodiversity and ecosystem health, the forestry inquiry makes no reference to feral predators.

According to the committee “While we acknowledge these competing views, the committee will not be drawn into determining the validity or merit of the science and therefore makes no recommendations or findings to that effect.”

However they do recommend “… That the NSW Government review the Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approval with regard to the impacts of the 2019/20 bushfires and the findings of the 2021 NSW and Commonwealth State of the Environment Reports.”

After more than 20 years of Regional Forest Agreements they still have no data on what grows back after logging, Because they simply believe it does all grow back.

Reference is also made to the National Resources Commission and its ‘specific legislative functions relating to improving the management of water, soil, and native vegetation and diversity, including forestry management.’

I’ve recently sent a draft report on the outcomes of some limited water sampling in the Murrah river and some sub-catchments to the NRC. While I expect it will be ignored, as the return of logging could be next year, the information could assist in putting a dampener on their unsustainable management.

Growing trees – in the garden of Eden

The South East NSW Forestry Hub is calling on landholders to help address the hardwood timber shortage by planting more trees. An article in the Bega District News quotes Hub manager Rob de Fégely saying : “Australia has run out of wood.”

According to the Hub ‘. . . the big end of town has been, in part, responsible for the dire situation, driven by short-term profit motives and now Mr de Fégely wants to see landholders, farmers, landcare groups and councils more involved in the discussion and the solution.”

While the big end of town’s part enabling ongoing gross forest mismanagement is undeniable. The management system behind it comes from the Forestry Corporation. Forestry regulators approve this management system under the Coastal IFOA and it is certified under the very low Australian Forestry Standard. All of the is possible under the Regional Forest Agreements the enable state governments to do whatever they want, irrespective of how stupid it is.

A recent Google image of approved and certified ecologically sustainable logging south of Eden. The armed forces bomb repository is bottom right and a firewood repository, with what appears to be at least 5,000 c/m of timber in it, is top left.

The article goes on to suggest ” . . . Profit motives have driven the way hardwood plantations have been used.”After 10-15 years the wood harvested. It’s not stable as a construction timber at that age but great for paper and so it’s all sold to Asia,” Mr de Fégely said. Natural forests supply boutique products such as high strength (power poles, beams), decking, cladding and furniture.”

The issue here is that soil fertility is the main factor determining the growth rates of trees and this sets the time frame for any potential use when it’s cut down. While a silver-top ash power pole with a girth of 50cm may only take 50 years to grow on a high quality site, a high quality sawlog, that has the most stable wood, will take 120 years on the same site.

This isn’t the upper limit for tree growth on the south coast, because a Maidens gum I planted in a riparian area 27 years ago has a girth of 70cm. Regrettably, sites with this potential are as rare a hen’s teeth.

Funding for koala extinction and mouse rewilding

Adding to the $15+ million spent to achieve nothing for koalas, Local Land Services are calling on expressions of interest from landholders in the Bega Valley to undertake ‘revegetation and enhancement of koala habitat’.

The theory that koalas will benefit from planted trees is based exclusively on State Forests 1997 koala management plan. The idea is that a lack of soil nutrients, the reason koalas die-out on agriculural land 110 years ago and the more recent reduction in soil water holding capacity, are not constraints to growing trees for koalas.

In a letter to the Bega District News I point to the lack of evidence that, unlike other areas in NSW, Qld and Victoria, koalas have ever used a planted tree on the south coast and the need to enhance the habitat quality in the forests koalas occupy.

Indifference to habitat management for koalas adds to the known threats

Only two months after the close of comments on the NPWS’s feral predator exclusion fence, they have released thirteen smokey mice into it. According to NSW Environment Minister James Griffin there are fewer than 100 smoky mice left in the South East Forest and the only other known population is found in and around Kosciuszko National Park.

Studies of the mouse in Victoria have found it has a summer diet of the seeds of shrubby legumes, berries of epacrids (heaths) and bogong moths. In winter it digs up truffles from fungi associated with various shrubs and grasses.

Where these food sources aren’t available, populations can crash with the males going first, because the females are more likely to occupy better quality habitat. We can’t be sure the habitat within the Nungatta fence fits the better criteria.

Stopping logging – just the start of improving management

Congratulations to the Brooman State Forest Conservation Group and many others, for achieving the 20,000 signatures required for a parliamentary debate on native forest logging.

Realistically the group have acknowledged that the debate will probably go nowhere, but may provide leverage at the next state election.

The petition proposes the government implement a four point plan being-

(1) Develop a plan to transition the native forestry industry to 100% sustainable plantations by 2024. A small issue, once they’ve replanted the significant areas of plantations areas burnt, is the availability of suitable fertile land in NSW. The Middle to Late Cretaceous sediments found in the Victorian Otway and Strzelecki Ranges are probably the best soils for plantations in the south east. They are also the best for koalas and the two aren’t very compatible.

(2) In the interim, place a moratorium on public native forest logging until the regulatory framework reflects the recommendations of the leaked NRC report. I’ve only got the redacted version of the Natural Resources Report recommending ” . . . allow for harvesting under standard Coastal IFOA prescriptions with additional measures (as described Table 16), including temporary refuges based on a fixed retention requirement of 75 percent in local landscape areas in the following six high risk management zones: Badja, Bago-Maragle, Batemans Bay, Dorrigo, Eden and Glen Innes”

Exactly what this means and what the additional measures are isn’t clear, because there is no Table 16. However, Forestry Corp do seem content with their current approach, despite the increasing fines for non-compliance.

Under different circumstances this koala would not be faced with a wombat gate that it didn’t get through, even though wombats and bandicoots can. Nor did it use an overhead entry point into the fence immediately adjacent to the gate that possums use. The alternative is a open access point with a ‘felixer’, so native species can go in and out, but cats and foxes aren’t so lucky. Interestingly, two weeks later as indicated in photo below the koala, possibly a youngish male was still quite close, up a tree just across the road.

(3) Immediately protect high-conservation value forests through gazettal in the National Parks estate. For south coast koalas, gazettal as a National Park will only provide marginal protection while the NPWS’s management remains non-adaptive.

(4) Ban use of native forest materials as biomass fuel. An analysis of data from the local long term koala surveys found Black forest oak (Allocasuarina littoralis) is the most abundant tree above 150mm DBH in these forests. The small nitrogen-fixing tree is more abundant in heavily logged areas and lives for about 60 years. It also drops a large volume of needles, up to 50 tonnes per hectare after 40 years. Under pre-european conditions much of this mulch would have been dug into the soil by the animals thereby increasing soil fertility. Under NPWS management the future soils are burnt, adding to climate change and many of the oaks are killed, which starts the process again.

The clear implication in the federal State of the Environment report is that irreversible damage to ecosystems and wildlife is occurring across tenures and if one believes NP management is sustainable, anything is.

Reforming public forest management – who supports it ?

An ABC report on the inevitable endangered listing for greater gliders quoted Federal environment Minister Tanya Plibersek suggesting – “States will be responsible in the first instance for evaluating the new conservation advice, – And they will in the first instance be determining if they need to change their forest management systems.”

On the other hand Professor David Lindenmayer who supports the new listing said ” . . . addressing the environmental impacts of native logging would be essential to protect the species. We need to make sure the regional forest agreements are reformed.”

Before any other essential requirement, Greater gliders and koalas are dependent on soils that enable the growth of eucalyputs leaves with enough nutrients and most of the water required to keep them alive.

The three local greater glider records over the past 18 years. Number one is a OE&H record on private land during 2016. Two is a pre-logging forestry record in Murrah state forest during 2005 where the operation did not proceed due to koalas, although the glider is not reported in the Harvesting plan. Three is another forestry record during 2010 in Biamanga NP, around the time of the illegal logging in Biamanga Aboriginal Place and also not referred to in the logging plan.

Clearing, logging and burning all reduce soil ferility and this negative outcome can only be reversed with the full compliment of biodiversity that maintained the ecological processes responsible for healthly forests.
While we know the reduction of ecological processes is largely a result of the loss of ‘eco-engineers’ due to feral predators. Limited re-introduction of these species on the southcoast, initially into a fenced area, has only recently been proposed by the NPWS. However, the federal government funded our feral preditor exclusion fence over 20 years ago.
Any reformation of the RFA’s should require state government agencies to improve forest health by restoring ecological processes across tenures and demonstrate their management will not adversely impact on native species, a notion currently not supported by forestry or parks in NSW or the government supported Koala Action Network.

Cultural burning project – inappropriate, expensive and unprofessional

The original plan for the publicly funded $76,000 ‘Cultural Burning Program in the SENSW Murrah Landscape’ suggests ” . . .The key outcome for Stage 1 will be the selection of, and detailed burn plans for >20 X 1-10ha strategically selected patches within these localities. “

This works out to somewhere between >20 hectares and > 200ha. The plan also suggests ” . . . Stage 2 will see the implementation of these fire plans, including extensive preparatory works that include the creation of low-fuel buffers around each patch selected for burning, the protection of koala browse saplings and dense thickets where Long-nosed potoroo are identified. Burns will be carefully implemented successively in small mosaics.”

We only know of one location of less than 1 hectare that was burnt last year. This location is in a coupe that has not been subjected to integrated logging. This year’s burning was mostly in two adjacent areas, both about half a hectare, one adjacent to last year’s in the unlogged coupe and the other across the road in a coupe logged in 1980.

While the dampness and a general lack of ground cover has clearly limited the spread of the fires, part of the area in the logged coupe resulted in a very hot burn.

The bark on this koala feed tree has been burnt for more than 10 meters up the tree’s trunk and all of the ground litter has been comsumed in the fire, leaving a few charred sticks.

In the previously unburnt area of the unlogged coupe, the latest burn has been undertaken within a meter of an unmapped but incised water course. Attempts to re-burn the area burnt last year have not been successful. So they decided to pull out most of the 81 wattle seedlings, leaving about 30 as indicated the following photo.

Attempts to remove these seedlings haven’t been successful either. As indicated in the next photo, most of the remaining wattles have had their mature leaves pulled off, leaving the immature bipinnate leaves behind.

Parks attempt Act compliance – koala extinction not an issue

In an attempt to convince others their management complies with the NPW Act, the National Parks and Wildlife service are amending the Southeast forest NP and Egan peaks nature reserve management plan. The amendment will enable the construction of a 2,000 hectare fenced area to exclude foxes and cats. The amendment implies having this area, occupying less than 2% of the park, is sufficient for the NPWS to forget about risks to threatened mammals in the rest of the park and enough to demonstrate a commitment to broad scale improvements to forest health.

The current (2006) park management plan proposes translocating koalas into the Southeast forest NP. However the first multi-million dollar attempt to translocate koalas from the Strzelecki ranges some years ago failed. There is also evidence of another more recent translocation effort, with koalas from an unknown source. On this occasion the limited evidence suggests the koalas took off in every direction and didn’t return.

Among other things, my comments on the proposal pointed to our local fenced area excluding foxes and cats, that the NPWS doesn’t support. However it was intended to be one of many smaller areas, where ‘Eco-engineers’ could breed safely and be released from the area, after fair dinkum attempts to eliminate foxes and cat were implemented in surrounding forests.

After under taking Stage two of the so-called cultural burning project in critical koala habitat last year. The NPWS and Forestry are either doing it again this year, or they have been physically pullling up the species that always grow back after fire in these forests, irrespective of who lights them.

A Bega District News story on the recent ‘Community Koala Day’ quotes Koala Action Network’s (KAN)new spokesperson Josie O’Connell claiming ” . . . climate change, loss of habitat and fragmentations have had a serious impact” on koalas.

In contrast the NSW Scientific committee’s (NSWSC) 2007 final determination rejecting my nomination to list south coast koalas as endangered acknowledged they ” . . . are threatened by ongoing degradation in the quality of their habitat because of extensive canopy dieback, clearing due to rural residential development and commercial forest harvesting.”

The KAN’s misrepresentation of the threats to koalas, is consistent with their support for Forestry’s 1996 koala management plan and the government’s plan to resume logging. Forestry’s 28 year old plan suggests planting forest redgum on cleared agricultural land, where koalas became extinct over a century ago and forest redgum regrowth is stunted, will increase koala numbers. Forestry have since acknowledged extensive canopy dieback is generally more extreme on private land, but the KAN ignore this reality.

The NSWSC also indicated ” . . . Further measures are needed to mitigate these threatening processes and provide for the recovery of this iconic species in south-east NSW and elsewhere in its range.”

Also quoted in the BDN article is the Australian Koala Foundation’s Deborah Tabart suggesting less that 1% of original koala habitat in the federal electorate of Eden-Monaro is occupied and that” . . . koalas needed cooperation between state agencies and private landholders interested in protecting biodiversity.”

If the purpose of the KAN is to ensure there is no cooperation, the threats continue to be ignored and public funds are spent on works that do not mitigate them, they are doing a good job.

The new(?) koalas and community koala day

Recent reports of a “climate resistant” koala colony being discovered in the large (6,900 km²) Kosciuszko National Park are welcome but a bit misleading.

The recordings of koala bellows were taken during the warmer months in Byadbo Wilderness Area at the southern end of Kosciuszko National Park, adjacent to Victoria. Covering around 605 km² in total, a part of the area is within the South East Corner Bioregion, like the last few koalas on the south coast.

The elevation in the area ranges from 400 metres to 1,450 metres and while 800 metres is generally considered to be the upper limit of koala habitat, a lack of koala surveys raises some uncertainty. However, nutrients are more limited at higher elevations and Sodium in particular is very limited on the tablelands. Koalas currently on the southern tablelands are the descendants of Victorian island koalas, the southern most colony were translocated in the early 1990’s from a different location in Victoria than the northern one.

Genetic evidence isn’t referred to but in the early 1990’s genetic material from a koala at Tubbut, about 20km south of the wilderness area was obtained and the results published. More recently analysis of koala pellets from the Murrah Flora reserves found they are similar to those from Tubbut, which are also similar to the genetics of the remaining endemic Victorian koalas in south gippsland.

This genetic link is of particular interest given koalas didn’t move into Victoria until relatively recently, about 10,000 years ago when the climate got warmer.

Last Saturday a consortium of groups held a Koala Community Day at the Murrah Hall about what they are doing to get koalas onto private land. Due to uncertainty about what information would be available I sent a few questions a week or so before the day.

There was one response to a question about the actual location of a koala and joey said to have been found on private property at either Cuttagee or the Murrah after the fires. The response, from the person who took the photos, said the koalas were at the Murrah and the report had come from the landholder, a member of the RFS. According to the RFS member the koalas must have travelled several kilometers from the fires to get to his property, south of the Murrah river.

Koalas north of the Murrah river are known to carry chlamydia and those to the south don’t suggesting the colonies are disjunct. While it seems extraordinary that a mother and joey travel such a distance, when there is no evidence any other koalas have. More incredible is that the koala experts decided not to take the animals into care to clarify their disease status. Rather they just let them go as if infecting koalas south of the river with chlamydia had nothing to do with them.

I couldn’t see the point of attending, but they proposing the show the results of koala call recording undertaken on selected private properties by the LLS. Unfortunately the big uncertainty with this survey method is how far away the koala is from the recorder.

For his estimates of male koalas’ homerange sizes Forestry’s Dr Brad Law has settled on between 100 and 300 metres. From this estimate he proposes a home-range area of 90 hectares for male koalas in the Murrah Flora reserves. However he also cites ‘Jurskis V, Potter M (1997) ‘Koala surveys, ecology and conservation at Eden.’ Research Paper No. 34. (Research Division, State Forests of New South Wales: Sydney, NSW, Australia)

According to the authors of this paper, koala bellows can be heard up to 2 kilometres away. So the 100 to 300 metres may be an underestimate and the koala numbers an overestimate.

Cults join to eliminate koalas

The inquiry into the ‘Long term sustainability and future of the timber and forest products industry’ has completed hearings on the south and north coast. On reading the transcripts it is hard not to be disappointed with the general strategy taken by conservationists in both locations, that native forest logging is not economically viable.

On the south coast concerns about forestry’s economic viability were coupled with their general lack of compliance with prescriptions. Demonstrating money isn’t a concern, more compliance officers was proposed. Conservationists did mention the ‘biodiversity crisis’. They didn’t mention the Regional Forest Agreements, essential for exporting woodchips or the decline in forest health and associated poor regeneration. However, industry reps did and inferred maintaining the industry was the best way to address these issues.

While there could be a perception that the two sides are miles apart and koalas weren’t mentioned at the Moruya hearing. Forestry’s former koala expert Vic Jurskis, who believes regular burning is required to keep koalas numbers down and Koala Action Network member Peter Rutherford spoke on behalf of the industry.

The connection at a local level is the “Cultural Burning Program in the SENSW Murrah Landscape” project as South East Timber Association’s Peter Rutherford and Kane Weeks, Director of the NPWS Southern branch are both project referees.

While we are yet to see any report on the outcomes from the project, the photo above was recently taken at one of the sites subject to burning. The white pegs are where wattle seedlings can be found. A total of 81 seedlings were identified in an area of 65 m2.

Ramping this up it equates to 1,246 a stems per hectare. Should they survive, in a few years this area of forest that had little in the way of a ‘mid-storey’ component will have a significant one. Hence fires will be more intense and the chance of a crown fire greatly enhanced.

Koalas were referred to at the north coast inquiry meeting and it was good to hear Dailan Pugh express concerns about how ‘dishonest’ Dr Brad Law turned his ‘song meter’ survey results into koala density numbers.

Evaluating koala protection – without untangling dieback

Back in 2015-16 the NSW Environment Trust gave the Forestry Corporation $2.5 million for a 4 year project titled “Protection of Koalas in Murrah Koala Reserves”. Last year the Environment Trust engaged the Natural Resources Commission (NRC) to evaluate the project.
According to the NRC ” . . . The project aimed to enhance the conservation status of areas within three state forests on the NSW far south coast to further protect the last remaining koala population in the region and important Aboriginal cultural values and heritage sites. The project also funded actions to minimise impacts on the local timber industry and protect jobs.”
The NRC investigated 1. whether the project delivered the expected outcomes – 2. whether its design and approach were effective and 3. what can be learnt from it to improve future projects and long-term outcomes. provided its report to the Environmental Trust in December 2021.

Trees in the background include koala feed species that are now only suitable for psyllids and bellminers.

There is no evidence to demonstrate the conservation status of the state forests have been enhanced. This is because forestry’s design and approach are bound to have been ineffective and with the purpose of ensuring nothing has or could have been learnt.
Confirmation of this probable outcome comes in the form of a ‘Dieback symposium’ the NRC
plans to hold in Canberra on the 4th & 5th of April 2022. The last such turn-out was in Lismore for a bell-miner associated dieback forum in 2004. This proved to be dead end and given little has been learnt in the interim, there is every reason to believe outcomes from the Canberra symposium will be similar.

Complicating things is the fact that the NSW threatened species scientific committee (TSSC) has made a decision about dieback associated with dry weather and drought. So I dropped a line to the NRC a couple of weeks ago, asking if the symposium reflected uncertainty about the TSSC’s decision, but won’t be holding my breath waiting for a response.

Endangered koalas – need koala friendly management

While the endangered listing of koalas in NSW, Qld and the ACT was unavoidable. The ignorance behind the management pushing koalas to extinction is totally avoidable. According to Environment Minister Sussan Ley’s press release, her decision to support an endangered listing for koalas reflects “ . . . The impact of prolonged drought, followed by the black summer bushfires, and the cumulative impacts of disease, urbanisation and habitat loss over the past twenty years …”

Quoted on the ABC Ms Ley suggests “Given we don’t know where more disease may hit, we don’t know where more bushfires may strike, we don’t know necessarily what the future holds, so we have to build the resilience now to get the highest number that we can”.

A koala revisiting a tree for the 4th time in a month. The tree is one of several over a broader area, but one of only two in the feral preditor free fenced area where dolomite has been spread in an area of 25sq/m around the tree base. None of the other dolomite treated trees have had koala visits in that time.

Knowing very little and understanding somewhat less, the idea is clearly to go along with the NSW government and translocate koalas every where they can. So the koala ‘recovery’ is about quantity rather than any attempt to increase koala resilience by improving the quality of koala habitat.

The fact that the listing has co-incided with the probable election of a Labor candidate in the Bega electorate, could be a bonus. The sooner the Regional Forest Agreements are seen for what they are, an excuse for arrogant state government agencies to ignore forest decline while pretending logging is sustainable, the greater the chance of saving koalas.
Of course whether the latest member for Bega is up to it remains to be tested.

Repeating past mistakes won’t help koalas

The pre-federal election announcement of $50 million to be spent on koala “habitat protection, restoration and monitoring, among other initiatives” is doomed to repeat the mistakes that have not helped the species over the last 30 years.

On the NSW south coast ‘habitat protection’ in National Parks has failed to help koalas due to the unscientific and ecologically destructive management. While it may work at a few locations in Qld and Victoria, planting thousands of trees on degraded farmland has also failed to help koalas.

These outcomes are inevitable because NSW government agancies and those getting the funds lack an understanding of the country they manage. Rather, ignoring local history and science makes it easier avoid management based on the National Forest Policy Statement and con well-meaning landholders into believing there are no soil limitations so planting trees will help koalas.

Broader scale evidence for this lack of understanding was referred at the most recent hearing of the inquiry into the “Long term sustainability and future of the timber and forest products industry“.

Recent shot of a south coast koala in an area protected from the excesses of day to day government mis-management, but not the long-term and broad scale threats created by this mis-management.

At this hearing the Executive Director of the NSW Natural Resources Commission Bryce Wilde, spoke about the Commission’s role in forest management and referred to final reports on – ‘Determining baselines, drivers and trends of soil health and stability in New South Wales forests: NSW Forest Monitoring & Improvement Program’ and ‘Long-term trends of Water Quality and Quantity of forested catchments within the NSW Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) regions’.

While the reports may say the right things, in both cases the lack of data is a clear limitation. The soil report is particularly limited due to a lack of laboratory analysis of soils below 30cm. Most people would understand that tree roots generally penetrate the whole soil profile. However the EPA, Forestry and the NPWS don’t believe soil degradation is an issue and are happy to repeat the mistakes of the past, into the future.

As for koala monitoring, recent research has found drones with infra-red cameras are the most efficient method for accurately counting koalas. If those getting the money to monitor/count koalas were fair dinkum they would be using the most effective method. More likely is the long-term failure to adapt and change will continue and add to arguments that those claiming to help koalas simply cannot be trusted.

Koala translocations – lessons not learnt

Three months ago the National Parks and Wildlife Service employed a ‘koala translocation clerk’. According to the position description the job includes contributing to the ” . . . development and delivery of a translocation program on NPWS managed lands to reintroduce koalas into unoccupied potential habitat and reintroduce koalas from existing NSW populations to improve genetic diversity and health of local populations, based on translocation research and lessons learned from previous translocations.”

The first official proposal to translocate koalas to the south coast was to ensure logging could continue where the only endemic koalas remain. Koalas were to be snatched from the Strzelecki ranges and moved to a National park in the Eden region, where the species had previously been pushed to extinction. Recently the ABC reported on another approved proposal to translocate koalas from the Strzelecki ranges to South Australia.

In this case “Up to six male koalas will be relocated from Victoria to South Australia to help diversify the gene pool.” and “Researchers hope they’ll be able to breed disease-free koalas”. However, the article quotes Friends of the Earth land-use researcher Anthony Amis indicating local groups had been seeking information about the plans since November but were fobbed off by officials. “There was a similar plan from the New South Wales in about 2015, and there was a team that came down to grab the animals but found they had a strain of chlamydia,” he said. “Why the secrecy?”

Attempting to improve koalas disease resistance in some catchments or areas of them, may not account for why they were extinct in the 1700’s.

One reason for the secrecy is the extreme uncertainty about the outcomes. This is particularly the case when translocating koalas into areas where they have previously become extinct. Koalas were only recorded in the far southeast corner of what became South Australia after Europeans invaded. Recent research has demonstrated Australia’s mega-fauna were wiped out by either climate change or human predation or a combination of both, depending on the location.

In the upper reaches of the Lake Eyre catchment in South Australia, researchers found fossils from the “thunder bird” (Genyoris newtoni), indicating the population were suffering from osteomyelitis, a painful bone disease. On the issue of their extinction, thunder bird researcher Dr Scott Hocknull said “A few years ago there was definitely two camps: either climate change or humans did it, . . . The research suggests that each catchment in Australia needs to be treated individually.” In the south east of the state, that did have koalas, the extinction of diprotodons is now thought to have been a result of climate change combined with human land use and predation.

Until there is majority support for ecologically sustainable forest and catchment management, the secrecy around koala translocations is likely to continue, apart from any that are considered to be at least temporarily successful.

Koala sighting and ‘population b’

Last Friday the Bega District News ran a brief story with video about the sighting of a koala walking along the Bermagui – Tathra road. It is clear that the koala was scared by the car and sought to get up a tree ASAP.
For all we know, given the location is only about 5km from here as the crow flies, it could be the same koala I have seen twice on this property since September. If that is the case the poor thing is yet to find a suitable homerange.
Another concern is the dark patch on the koala’s rear end. Four years ago Chlamydia had not been detected in koalas south of the Murrah river. While there is no certainty the dark patch is a sign of the disease, it is a little disturbing.

On Saturday morning ABC local radio spoke to local koala survey contractor Mark Lems on the issue. While Mark indicated they send fresh pellets to Sydney University for analysis from their surveys. Mark didn’t say any were collected from this koala.

However he did suggest there may be koalas at Mogilla, some 45 km to the southwest and adjacent to the South east National Park. This is where they intended to translocate koalas as part of their “Corridors and core habitat for koalas on the NSW Far South Coast” back in 2013. So perhaps it has happened, but they aren’t talking about it.

Complacent government agencies -No1 threat to koalas

Yesterday, a month after my koala inquiry was passed onto the NSW Koala Strategy Team, a response arrived from Kane Weeks, the Director of the National Parks and Wildlife Service South Coast Branch.

Exactly why Kane bothered to respond isn’t clear because be didn’t answer any of my questions. However, from his message it could be inferred that the NPWS has never provided any advice to Bega Shire Council about koalas and the shotgun club.

While council has advised the shooters have withdrawn their DA for extra shooting days. All that really means is business as usual and any negative impacts on koalas and the significant pollution resulting from the club’s activities will continue to be ignored.

Going up

On a positive note there have been a couple of koala sightings locally over the past few weeks and even an unverified report of a koala in Bodalla State Forest. Of course the last thing Forestry want is koalas or indeed any threatened species in areas they want to log.

So it seems unlikely there will be any followup surveys in the area. Similarly even if koalas are listed as endangered in NSW, it also seems unlikely that will be enough for the agencies to adapt and improve their management practises.

Koalas decline – but ferals doing well

A couple of weeks ago I sent an a letter to the Department of Industry, Planning and Environment (DoPIE) asking questions about koalas and the shotgun club. As yet there has been no response and there probably won’t be one.

More recently a local resident advised that a final working plan for the Murrah Flora Reserves was available. However, the final plan, dated September 2019, is not on the DoPIE’s website that still has the final draft. Rather the plan is on the Forestry Corporation’s website.

This year is the final ‘evaluation year’ for the reserves and the final plan is confirmation that logging is likely to resume next year. While the plan claims that so called ‘adaptive management’ is intended to improve koala habitat. Unfortunately the plan also repeats the same sentence found in the draft that “Changes in other more complex threats such as die-back are less clear.”

According to the DoPIE’s website adaptive management includes 4 elements. The second of these is a process model the requires and ability to “Describe the threats and processes that influence the objectives.”

The issue is that dieback will remain too complex to understand while they reject the science that explains it. If they didn’t reject the science it would be impossible to say that native forests logging is sustainable, even when forestry complies with the prescriptions.

A random koala – or other

Koalas are known to turn up in some pretty odd places at unexpected times. The koala in the photo certainly fits those criteria. The location is said to be a property on Desert creek road about 12 kilometers north-west of Bega.

According to the report on INaturalist the property residents heard a koala bellowing a couple of weeks ago. So they went to investigate and took the photo through the window. Unfortunately the location provided is a bit vague as it is nowhere near a house.

The report does refer to unverified ‘sighting’ a couple of years ago from NPWS staff of a koala further to the north west in Wadbilliga NP. Apparently they were surveying with an infra-red camera on a helicopter.

Under normal circumstances and given the very low numbers of koalas on the south coast, koala survey contrators would be sent out to have a look. On this occassion the Local land Services were apparently alerted and were going to undertake acoustic surveys as part of their yet to be announced koala recovery plan.

Exactly what happened as a result isn’t known but one male koala, that could have come from Wadbilliga or the tablelands population another 50km to the northwest, doesn’t make for a koala population. Another possibility is a koala that has been translocated to make the Koala Action Network’s ‘population B’.

Time may or may not tell.

When the loggers return – what is safe?

This year the Murrah Flora reserves are supposedly up for review to establish whether logging can continue. To facilitate further logging compartments that don’t have recent koala records, according to the Bionet records database, are required. Apparently one of these koala free areas is compartment 2044 in Murrah state forest. The compartment is adjacent to Cuttage Lake where forestry appear to have undertaken pre-logging surveys in June this year.

In a genus of its own, the Swamp wallaby is considered to be of least concern conservation wise, although like many species there isn’t much evidence to prove it.

Bionet indicates nine koala records in Murrah state forest since it was turned into a flora reserve in 2016. All of these are from the less than informative acoustic song meter surveys.

There are no records from the long-term and arguablely just as uninformative koala scat surveys because they are all secret. According to the Bionet database forestry saw a Swamp wallaby in compartment 2044 during their surveys. This is the only record of a Swamp wallaby in Murrah SF since the flora reserves were announced.

Koala records are red triangles

Koala returns and more crap research

For the second time in 6 weeks a koala has appeared along the driveway uphill from my house. I was driving up the hill and noticed a small furry grey animal walking downhill along the feral preditor exclusion fence. By the time I stopped the car it had turned around and climbed up the fence. Unfortunately the eastern side of the fence all has a ‘floppy’ top, so it climbed back down and headed for a Silver-top ash a few metres upslope.

Silver-top ash, like Blackbutt on the north coast are Monocalypts that, unlike Symphyomyrtus are generally not koala’s preferred feed trees. The main difference between the two groups is that the latter tend to grow on more fertile soils.

So it was interesting to read the latest report on NRC/ForestryCorporation koala research on the north coast. There no is reference to soils or their fertility in the report. Similarly, the research appears to based on the Forestry Corporation’s ‘Forest types’ (Research note 17) that has no scientific basis and appears to change with every Harvesting plan.

The report does refer to the review of the koala conservation status of New South Wales and ‘ . . . the large areas of otherwise unburnt koala habitat that have additionally been rendered unsuitable for koalas through water-stress, leading to leaf-browning and loss of preferred browse species.” A phenomenon associated with reducing soil fertility.

The report shows a photo of ‘regrowth forest’ indicating ” . . . Five to 10 years after this harvesting, these sites: ▪ were dominated by a high density of young regenerating trees, with an average DBH of 10 to 15 centimetres.” The photo below is of 27 year old Silver top ash and the largest trees in the stand are just over 20cm DBH.

The press release for the report quotes Natural Resources Commissioner, Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte suggesting “I am concerned however, there are greater threats to the long-term survival of koalas in NSW’s forests. In particular, climate change is a threat to the future integrity of koala habitats due to increased frequency of wildfire and prolonged periods of heat stress”
This statement is based on the notion that Bell miner Associated Die-back down slope is not associated with water-stress, leading to leaf-browning upslope.

Shotguns-Gladys and the local connection

An interesting article on the ABC website about studies on the use of drones to find koalas and their potential to cause stress. While captive koalas seemed not to be too upset. According the the researcher “If there’s a disturbance and it suddenly interrupts their sleep, and they spend more time in vigilance, then they have to get that energy back at another time, which could have long-term impacts.”

Koala passes by a water station, no pellets located at a nearby tree that had some several months ago or any surrounding trees

Life is full of conicidences and Gladys falling on the sword, due to her association with Dirty Daryl and an Australian Clay Target Association (ACTA) grant is much like what is going on down here. While waiting for info on the EPA’s investigation into my pollution report about the local ACTA shotgun club, there has still been no response from Bega Valley council. If and when they do respond I expecting the usual inadequate drivel.

In the interim seems time to contact the DPIE and the regional NPWS regarding their ready acceptance of a 24 year old flora and fauna report. Particularly because it was undertaken at a location where the shooters didn’t start shooting until 2013 and the bizarre assumption that shotgun noise is not a threat to koalas.

Helping koalas -requires many wheels in motion

Having put in comments on the feds koala conservation advice and its draft recovery plan, the question about which level of government is willing to help koalas remains unanswered.

Three people spoke against the proposal to increase the shotgun club’s so-called training days at the public forum with Councillors last week. I kicked mine off saying I had put an informal request for the baseline contamination report and flora and fuana report, that Council would not give them to me, but the contamination report had been provided by a third party. Finishing my chat I suggested the club should be required to cease its activities, and an adequate contamination study and remedation reports should be produced.

Koala next to a tree where scats were previously found, but not on this occasion

Curiously minutes after the forum Council sent me both reports. Not surprisingly the majority of Bega Valley Shire Councillors ignored concerns from local residents and supported the club.
The one concession was to reduce the number extra shooting days from 12 to 9 days a year. As a consequence the next day I put in a pollution report to the EPA and Council based on the information in the contamination report.

Council has never required the club to comply with the approval conditions so it is reponsible for the lead and antimony pollution in the Murrah. On the other hand the EPA is responsible for accrediting ERM and it is apparent they have not followed the EPA’s guidelines for contaminated land soil sampling.
What happens next is unclear, but the flora and fauna report is a joke so more wheels will have to be put in motion.

The principles required to help koalas

Tomorrow I will be giving a presentation to Bega Valley shire councillors on ‘zoom’, objecting to any increase in shooting and any shooting at all at the shotgun club. Not sure why they have decided to let me speak, given they wouldn’t provide the reports council staff are relying on.

However I did get one of the reports from someone they did give it to. It is titled ERM Baseline Contamination Study, I’ve read some pretty shonky reports in my time and while this one may give the impression of credibility, it rates among the most shonky.

For a start to avoid perceptions of bias the soil sampling locations should have been based on a grid. Failing this the sites should have been determined by the locations of shooting positions and shotgun pellet fallout areas associated with the positions. The ERM study does not provide the locations of shooting positions or any indication of fallout areas.

As indicated on the map of the property a shotgun fired from a central point and in any direction would result in most of the fallout landing on the property within the first circle that has a radius of 210 metres. If shooting toward the property boundary, moving 50 metres in any direction would result in more pellets landing within the second circle with a larger area outside the property. Moving 100 metres in any direction would result in a significant proportion of the fall landing outside the property boundary.

According to the report The two sampling sites (SS 23 & and SS 43) indicated on the map are suggested to be in ‘Impact zones/ fall areas’. Site 23 is in the Murrah Flora reserve and is one of two sites where clay target fragments were reported. If the shooting position was 50 metres from this location and within the property the fallout would extend at least 130 metres into the flora reserve.

Site 43 is where soil lead is reported as being 1000 mg/kg, more than 3 times the accepted limit (300 mg/kg) for lead contamination. A shooting position 155 metres to the west would result in lead deposition at site 43. However there is a ridge-line between the two points. If shooting from this position was to the west all of the fallout would land in the Murrah Flora reserve.

On the koalas Council staff are relying SEPP 44 and the current Koala SEPP 2020 that both suggest Forest red gum is the preferred koala feed tree in the shire but there is no evidence of koalas using this species for over 100 years. The flora and fauna report they are relying on and won’t provide was produced in August 1997. The first report on local koala feed trees, that council staff has always ignored was also released in August 1997.

But at least in my sub on the feds recovery plan can point out that council and the state government lack the principles required to help koalas.

Shotgun damaged trees

Koala visits – has a good meal

Last Thursday week I noticed fresh koala pellets along the road where I live at the Murrah. The koala was still up the tree, a Mountain grey gum and it stayed there for the next three days. Based on the look of it and the significant number of pellets collected in photo, it is a fairly small but hungry animal perhaps less the 4kg. It is the first time I’ve seen or found evidence of a koala on the property and I’ve never found so many pellets under a tree on the south coast. It is also the closest to the river I’ve ever located

The only difference between the grey gum and other trees is that the road was upgraded to concrete strips about 5 years ago and areas between and each side of the strips were filled with mulch and biochar at a rate of 1 litre per square metre. It is possible that an increase in soil pH, due to both the concrete and char could make nutrients more available to the tree.

After leaving the tree it went about 150m up slope to a Woollybutt, where it spent two days. The night time photo is when it descended. I had strapped a couple of small branches of Forest red gum to the tree to see if it was interested. It spent two minutes there and it may have nibbled some, but they had been there for more than a day the leaves had started to dry out.

The koala then moved into a Silver top ash, about 5 metres away for the day but went elsewhere that night without being detected on the cameras. Seems likely the koala is looking for a homerange that can support it, so it will be interesting to see if it returns. There were about 30 pellets under the Woollybutt and the same 8under the Silver top ash.

NSW Koala strategy – no help to koalas

The DPIE “have reached the three year milestone for the NSW Koala Strategy 2018-21” and are aiming to “evaluate the progress and outcomes of actions”. To facilitate the evaluation Clear horizon consulting have been engaged and stakeholders can fillout an online survey on their website. There were 24 actions in the strategy the first two being to ‘Permanently conserve priority koala habitat as National Parks and ‘Protecting koala habitat through new koala reserves’. Of course since that time we can be fairly certain koalas were not permanently protected in Kooraban NP.

This koala is coming down after being up the tree for an hour and a half. Probably the same koala came back the next night for 3 and a half hours. No koala pellets could be found under under the tree, although there were some back in April.

While the same threats are active in the two remaining NPs with koalas and the Murrah flora reserves. The Koala Action Network (KAN) believe koalas have adapted to dehydration and starvation. So the DPIE is focused on another action the ‘Relocation of koalas to unoccupied koala habitat’ and is working through the KAN ‘to identify areas to relocate koalas’.

Exactly where these koalas are to come from isn’t mentioned, but some believe they are helping koalas.

Shotguns and koalas – are they compatible?

Bega valley shire council has given provisional approval to the Bermagui shotgun club to hold a ‘training day’ once a month. This is in addition to their current monthly shooting day. The additional day was proposed two years ago. But there little advance notice it was going before council I sent an email to all the councillors. Only Greens councillor Cathy Griff was kind enough to respond and refer to koalas at the council meeting.

The issue is whether the shotgun club is contributing to the lack of interaction between between koalas north and south of the Murrah river. As indicated in the graphic, apart from the paddocks there is little that would constrain this interaction.

However, all of the northern side of the river was heavily logged in the 1990’s and the noise from the club is channeled up the river. The site is heavily polluted with lead and as vegetation takes up lead, any animals at the site would get some too.

The provisional approval is based on the club getting further noise testing and improved lead collection, but thanks to the NPWS koalas and the fact that they sleep during the day, is not considered to be important.

Blue cross circles are from ‘song-meter’ surveys in 2017. Red are our community records. Hatch areas have all been logged in the past 40 years. There are no publicly available records from the RGBSAT since 2013.

After the delay in the ‘cultural burning’ it appeared on the RFS website again last week. As there had been no response from the NPWS to the pollution report and associated noncompliant roadworks, I sent a letter to the Bega District News.

A few hours after the letter was published an email arrived from the NPWS, printed below. While finally acknowledging the mess they made, it is hard to believe the next few weeks won’t also involve the broad acre burn in critical koala habitat.

Dear Robert,
Apologies for the delay in response to your concerns regarding road maintenance activities on Mountain Trail / Bunga Trail, Wapengo.
I can now advise that the NPWS Field Operations team have attended the site and have commenced implementing additional sediment and erosion control measures.
I envisage these works will be completed in the next few weeks.
Regards,
Kathryn
Kathryn Brown
Ranger
South Coast, Eurobodalla Area
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service

Koalas in a least sensitive area

While pellets have been found at a few sites, this is the first photo/s since March at the same tree, but a different koala. The location is in one of three compartments that were scheduled for logging back in 1994, under the Timber Industry Interim Protection Act.

As a consequence, these compartments and several others were considered to be ‘least sensitive areas’ available for logging. When logging didn’t happen some conservations were concerned it could influence their reserve proposals, aimed at protecting koalas at Tantawangalo. The last record of a koala at Tantawangalo was in 1996.

Of course now we can be certain putting forests with koalas into National Park, based on a belief that logging is the only threat, doesn’t help koalas because National Parks management is crap.

Koala going up at the top and down at the bottom -21 hours later

Last Wednesday the Bega District News ran a story saying ” . . . Cultural burns have begun south of Narooma in the Murrah Flora Reserve and were expected to continue throughout August.” According to the RFS website a 20 hectare burn was in progress around Mountain Fire Trail, where a breeding female koalas has her homerange.

However, for reasons unknown the burn was removed from the RFS website a couple of hours later. Perhaps coincidentally, the unnamed road, where a pollution incident was reported to the EPA back in June, has been named as extension of Mountain Fire Trail. As the NPWS have done nothing about it, I sent another email last Monday to them indicating I would be taking my concerns about their non-compliance with best practise to our local state member, Andrew Constance. No news since then but it seems the burn hasn’t happened -yet.

Looking for koala habitat – easier than caring for them

The member for Bega, Andrew Constance recently announced $61,592,812 for 25 projects from the Bushfire Local Economic Recovery Fund. According to Andrew the funding ” . . . will enable fantastic projects that will deliver important infrastructure improvements, environmental results, industry and business development along with social and community outcomes.”

Among the projects is $947,803 to the Crossing land education center , run by Dean and Annette Turner. The project includes a proposal to “host an Aboriginal team for habitat survey and koala country rehabilitation between Gulaga and Mumbulla Mountains and the escarpment.” The last time I spoke to Dean he suggested the trees they have been planting for years will eventually be used by koalas, because they are in more fertile locations. If that were truly the case koalas would be using the trees soon after they were planted

As indicated in the graphic the habitat survey area is quite large, at over 100,000 ha some five times larger than the governments coastal survey area. As it takes 5 years to do a round of RGBSAT surveys, the proposal does seem a little unrealistic. However, it seems unlikely the idea originated from the Crossing. Rather it is most likely to come from Chris Allen and his original (1999) proposal that the generally very low fertility areas between the introduced tablelands koalas and coastal koalas has both suitable habitat and koalas.

Interestingly DPIE research on two Chlamydia infected koala colonies further to the north found those on low ferility soils had ocular infections and diseases not observed in the koalas with habitat on soils of higher fertility.
Of course such issues relate to koala welfare and keeping the alive in the wild, as opposed to imagining koala habitat is everywhere but koalas are too dumb to find it.

Firesticks Alliance -caring for koala country?

Caught on camera in the Murrah flora reserve recently was Firesticks Alliance member Dan Morgan and his cultural burning team. The location is in one of only two areas where female koalas have had joeys over the past two years and is immediately adjacent to the 1,000 hectares the NPWS is desperate to burn.

The team had been raking around most trees, although not the one in the foreground, the last tree with a koala in it and pellets around it and not logs on the ground. Some years ago Dan told me he read a book suggesting all country was covered in grass when Europeans invaded. In a previous media story Dan was teaching ‘the importance for cultural burns on country’ to youths involved in a Caring for Country project, run by NSW Police.

The move into critical koala habitat has the support of the NSW National Parks, NSW Rural Fire Service, Biamanga and Gulaga Board Management and the Koala Action Network.

According to Dan ” . . . it’s important to work together for the sustainability and health of fragile ecosystems, especially after the devastating bushfires.” While agreeing with the sentiment, science tells us this fragile ecosystem has a shrubby understorey when undisturbed. Science also tells us that low intensity burns can create Ammonium nitrogen (NH4-N) that helps growth but only lasts for a few years. This fact may explain why cultural burning was largely constrained to grassy ecosystems. The main negative impact on this soil landscape from burning is the removal of mulch and its positive influence on species that make nutrients available to plants – soil fungi, insects and micro-organisms.

To access the location the team appears to have driven along the newly bulldozed road, past the pollution incident reported to the EPA (nothing has been done about it) and through three muddy stream crossings. Thankfully, the Firesticks Alliance and the NPWS will have to wait until we’ve had a few weeks of dry weather for it to be dry enough to light up. Although given it’s a collaborative effort, when it is dry enough they’ll probably burn the lot all at once.

NPWS – the No. 1 threat to koalas?

The federal government’s recently released ‘Threatened Species Strategy 2021 -2031‘ summarises 5 key threats. These are invasive species, clearing, fragmentation and declining quality of habitat, climate change, changed fire regimes and changed hydrology. The stategy also indicates ” . . . While these key threats collectively impact high numbers of threatened species, a number of other threats to threatened species and ecological communities are also active, including pollution and overexploitation for human use. “

As a result of the NPWS ongoing degradation of critical koala habitat, last week a pollution report was lodged with the NSW Environment Protection Authority. The particular incident stems from an unmapped and unnamed road in the following photo.

The next photo is at the same location where a runoff from the road has been directed straight into a watercourse where rocks and soil can be seen in the stream bed direstly below. Under the IFOA’s forestry are not allowed to do this.

In this case the stream goes into a now polluted dam immediately adjacent to Wapengo lake, home to an otherwise sustainable oyster industry. The report to the EPA also mentioned two stream crossings further along this road that also flow into Wapengo lake and the kilometres of recently bulldozed roads it connects to.

In response the EPA sent the folowing message ” . . . Hi Team, Could you please look into the incident report below? Kind regards, Hillan”. Unfortunately the EPA sent their response to the Eurobadalla shire office of the NPWS. Wapengo lake is in the Bega shire, so it isn’t clear if the message got to the appropriate guilty party.

Meanwhile the NSW inquiry into the timber industry published submissions, including mine and one from Timber NSW suggesting ” . . . Recent bushfires across NSW have heightened concerns that the management of NSW public forests has largely failed to ensure the health of forest ecosystems, build resilience and secure a promised balance between economic, social and environmental values.” Couldn’t agree more.

Supporting dishonest law breakers -why we live in a police state

Extinction Rebellion members held a tree sit in Mogo State forest last week, holding up logging for a day. According to a forestry spokesperson there is no need to protest because their operations, under the IFOA, maintain ecological procesess to ensure the forests grow back and all the native species are safe.

The next day ER held another protest in Bega at Andrew Constance’s office, where three people got on the roof and awning overhanging the foot path. The police were concerned about the safety of the awning with three people on it.
Unfortunately they didn’t have anyone with the skill to climb a ladder so they had to get the crack ladder climbing team from Goulburn.

Maintaining ecological processes – the government way.

When they arrived three of them got on the awning as well. But they were still concerned about the safety of the awning so they hired a cherry picker to get the last protesters down. This was late in the afternoon when one expects the protesters would have come down anyway.

Missing from the police’s concerns is the fact that the state government have not fulfilled their legal obligations under the RFA’s. So while Mr Plod can arrest people on dubious charges, Forestry corp can continue its operations and ignore what were intended to be legally binding aspects of the RFAs.

Of course the NPWS also claim their management maintains ecological processes and the fires and drought did not have a negative impact on koalas. Now 9 months after they undertook ‘song meter’ surveys in the Murrah Flora reserves, results have not been publicly released. Wonder why?

NPWS – keen to get rid of koalas

While still to damp to light it up, the NPWS are continuing their broadscale bulldozing and clearing of fire trails and roads in the flora reserves, turning them into dirt highways. The Woollybutt in the photo is one the the many victims of their gross mismanagement.

While conservations moan about logging in forests where habitat trees were not retained during logging. In this case the 150+ year old hollowing bearing preferred koala feed tree had survived the logging because the species isn’t suitable for woodchips and the tree wasn’t suitable for a sawlog.

Bulldozer management – worse than forestry?

Technically the Murrah Flora reserves are still State Forests and either when the NPWS eliminate koalas or sooner, the intention has always been to return the reserves to forestry management. So I’ve submitted a brief submission to the forestry inquiry, even though based on experience, the inquiry is unlikely to go anywhere or achieve anything.

However it is clear that Forestry corp and the NPWS both ignore all the science and this is something they and the EPA colluded to achieve way back in 1994. So it will be interesting to see whether the inquiry publish the submission. I can think of several reasons why the may decide not to.

Koalas and gliders – in the same sinking boat?

Due to the ongoing dampness, the NPWS’s ongoing attempts to burn koalas and further degrade their habitat have been temporarily thwarted. With luck the delay will continue for sometime, but like the numbats recently incinerated in WA, koalas aren’t enough to change the NPWS’s management.

Interestingly the Far South Coast Branch National Parks Association (NPA) appears to have moved from its traditional unbridled support of the NPWS. In a recent article about potential post fire logging impacts on unidentified greater gliders they suggest ” . . . new information is just coming to light now about the chemistry of greater glider and koala leaf preferences in feed trees, which has huge implications for land management.”

Apart from stopping logging, details of what the NPA are proposing isn’t specified but they suggest “Intact, and more moist, old growth forest usually mitigates the spread of fire”. However, like the Bushfire inquiry, recent research has pointed to the weather as the major driver of the fires.

There are five greater glider records on the south coast since the fires.

In Victoria, forestry has won an appeal to log leadbeaters possum habitat, seemingly on the basis that it can ignore state government regulations and still get federal exemption, under the Regional Forest Agreements, to kill native species.

Currently in NSW ‘Portfolio Committee No. 4 – Industry’ has an inquiry into the ” Long term sustainability and future of the timber and forest products industry”. For some an issue is the lack of credible data on what grows back and at what rate after logging. This too was supposed to be undertaken under the RFAs but forestry gave up after the Millenium drought, due to the extreme number of dead regrowth trees.

A report on forestry’s limited data indicates “the recruitment and/or mortality models are not performing adequately.” This was before the fires and the reality now are forests that are unlikely to support the current industry or anything similar in the future.

Koalas and habitat eliminated in Coolagolite fire

The Coolagolite fire started late on the morning of October 3 and rapidly moved into areas mostly lightly burnt in Biamanga NP and Murrah SF during the Badja fire in 2020. The second RFS map of its progress shows it had travelled 13-15 kilometres reaching private land in Cuttagee catchment and the adjacent Murrah catchment by 8pm.

While a strong north-westerly wind was blowing during the day, an RFS spokesperson later speculated that wattle regrowth, since the Badja fire, would have increased both the intensity and speed of the fire. While there is no evidence to support the speculation, the obvious browning of tree canopies due to the prolonged dry weather has not been mentioned.

This first run of the fire was totally uncontrollable and the massive plumes of smoke extended for 30 kilometres out to sea, appearing as rainfall would on the BOM site. Koala surveys undertaken after the Badja fires started in April and were preceeded nearly 500mm of rain. On this occasion 53mm of rain fell on the October 4, but this wasn’t enough to extinguish the fire, so it kept burning for another three weeks. According to a post from the exclusive Koala Action Network (pasted below) some surveys are about to start.

The total area burnt was 7,300 hectares and while the greatest damage was done on the first day, areas burnt south of the Murrah river included the home range of at least one female koala. Virtually all trees in areas burnt on the first day have either brown or no leaves, so the chances of koalas surviving, particularly without the significant rainfall, are quite low. The last days of the fire did get close to the old bloke below, but at least he has supplimentary water, unlike most of the rest.

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If anyone has seen or heard any signs if recent koala activity either after or right before the Coolagalite fire, please share with us here. Any plan to support potentially displaced koalas will first require an understanding about where they are. Whether human intervention is the best action may differ from case to case.

I hear the shared heartbreak and frustration from the KAN community, waiting for any news about the small population of koalas that have occupied special pockets of habitat upon generations, living in the coastal range between Coolagalite and Murrah. News of survivors has been very thin on the ground since the fire swept through this landscape, we wait ironically with increasing patience, as the days turn to weeks.

In recent days KAN received delightful news that a koala was seen off Benny Gowings Road. Then another, by a helicopter pilot who reported seeing what they thought to be a koala sitting in a creek gully that generally bounds the western extent of the burnt landscape. I walked this location just a few days ago and am glad to share how in some gullies, I saw that the fire had ‘jumped’ just above the base of the gully, like a green seam of refuge in a landscape that is otherwise harshly burnt into many hues of sepia, or charred black.

While our waiting for news continues, a small team with post fire koala monitoring experience are being deployed any day now, if not already, to search for signs of other survivors. I believe that initially they will target key areas that have been occupied by koalas for many, and many years. It is likely that new information and next steps will not occur speedily but the Koala Action Network will share info as we can.

Please help to share this with others in the local community