May 23, 2009
WHY WE CAN'T CONSERVE KOALAS
Letter to the Editor, Courier Mail
Koalas are
rapidly marching down the path to extinction, along
with a host of our other forest-dwelling wildlife.
Do not think for one moment that I am being alarmist
or exaggerating: losing nearly 50% of a koala
population every 5-15 years (that's based on the
figures from a bureaucratic and conservative
Queensland EPA) is not a statistic that is conducive
to long-term survival.
The simplistic
reason for this dramatic decline in koala numbers is
that people like to live, work and farm land in the
same areas that koalas like to live. So we bulldoze
and cut down their forests to make way for our
houses, factories and agriculture, then slice up any
remaining habitat with highways, roads and other
infrastructure, which koalas either cannot cross, or
die in their attempts to do so. If you're the type
of person who thinks that wildlife should just be
protected in national parks and reserves, then
here's something to think about: The proportion of
koala habitat actually contained and protected in
national parks and reserves is not enough to ensure
their survival. It's as simple as that.
Dig a little
deeper into the koala issue and you find that the
more complex and disgusting truth is that the real
conservation of koalas is a very low priority for
our state and federal governments. What is more
important for them is the appearance of
wanting to conserve koalas, because that can win
votes, but from a political standpoint, koalas are
nothing more than an irritation, albeit an
irritation that can occasionally have significant
political consequences.
The demise of
the Goss government in Queensland in the 1995
election is partly attributed to their keenness to
put a highway smack in the middle of a major koala
habitat. They lost power and the road did not go
ahead. However, they did learn that a brazen
disregard for koalas might not be a good public
image -- better to appear to care for the iconic
animal. Then followed a number of State Planning
Policies for koala conservation and the much
anticipated "Koala Plan" of 2006. Although
appearing to do so, none of these documents ever
seriously addressed the issues causing the decline
of koalas. It is apparent now that they were never
intended to: the perceived consequences of
ratifying a document that had real intent and
the teeth to enforce it was not really in the best
political interests of the government of the day.
The result is obvious: koala populations are still
in dramatic decline, particularly in south east
Queensland.
The koala
populations of the Darling Downs and brigalow belt
out west were dealt their final blow with Peter
Beattie's announcement of the impending "ban" on
broad-scale land-clearing. He gave landholders
nearly three years notice of the intention of the
Vegetation Management Act to regulate the
clearing of remnant vegetation. So they got busy.
D9s dragging massive chains worked around the clock
clearing land as fast as the machinery could go.
Very few animals survive this brutal and destructive
process -- those that do are generally fatally
maimed and die slow deaths from their injuries,
dehydration and starvation. The 100,000 or so
koalas that once lived in these areas were not
immune. A few still hang on in remnants of habitat,
but their days are numbered -- the population so
sparse and scattered that it cannot maintain itself.
The ecological
term for the point of no return is "the tipping
point". Even though koalas are still relatively
widespread in distribution, many of the remaining
populations are small, isolated and have passed
their tipping points -- they are doomed to
extirpation (localised extinction). Unfortunately
tipping points are hard to predict and slip by
unnoticed by us, the stewards of the land: the
tragic and inevitable consequences may not manifest
sometimes for years.
As if loss of
habitat, plummeting numbers and political
indifference (or even malevolence) were not enough,
koalas are not a healthy bunch either. We've known
for years of their susceptibility to chlamydial
infection, the bacterial scourge that causes
blindness, infertility and urinary infections. The
recent discovery of an even more sinister and
devastating bug, the koala retrovirus, seems just
too much for the poor things to bear. This
AIDS-like virus causes leukaemia, cancer and
immunodeficiency syndromes at levels tens of times
higher than in the human population. It probably
makes koalas much more susceptible to severe
chlamydial disease as well.
As it has done
with the other major threats to koala survival, the
Queensland Government has treated this discovery
with indifference and inaction. Unlike the
Tasmanian government, that has spent over $1 million
researching facial tumour disease in Tassie devils,
our State government has spent nothing.
Why do our
governments care so little about the issues facing
our wildlife? Why is it that one of the world's most
critically endangered mammals, the northern
hairy-nosed wombat, found only in Queensland, has
had so little money spent on its recovery that it is
just plain embarrassing? Why is it that when the
koala is racing towards extinction, our state and
federal governments react by putting up a smoke
screen of rhetoric and feigned concern without any
intention of meaningful action? The answer is: I
just don't know, and I just don't understand. All I
know is that our descendents, our grandchildren and
theirs, will never forgive our inaction at the very
time in history when we knew what we were doing,
knew the consequences, knew the simple solutions,
but failed to act.
--Bob Irwin
