Fight for koalas goes international
By Save Eumundi Team • Nov 30th, 2009 • Category: NewsThe Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) is taking the fight to save the nation’s iconic animals overseas after becoming frustrated with lack of action from government leaders here.
The AKF’s CEO Deborah Tabart said last week she would attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen next month to highlight declining koala habitat and numbers.
She said she would spend two weeks at Copenhagen telling international media and non-government organisations about the need to preserve existing forests, for the sake of both the environment and koalas.
Ms Tabart said the AKF had formed a partnership with the Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) Academy to raise in other countries, the koala’s profile and plight here.
Australian actor and APSA patron, Jack Thompson, announced the partnership at the third annual awards at the Gold Coast last week.
Winner of the Best Actor award, Japan’s Masahiro Motoki, was photographed with a koala and said he would take the message about No Tree, No Me and the Foster-a-Koala programs back to Japan.
Each year, newly inducted academy members will become custodians of their own ‘‘foster koala’’.
A giant Ecualyptus tree named Propinqua at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, with a girth of 2.7 metres, was ‘‘pledged’’ as a reminder of the role trees have in protecting the environment and in providing koalas with food and shelter.
Ms Tabart said the tree stored about 289 tonnes of carbon in its trunk and to replace the carbon if the tree were cut down would require 579,000 saplings and 58 hectares of land.
“Research has shown that Eucalypt forests are some of the most valuable carbon sinks in the world,” Ms Tabart said.
“Without these trees, there will be no koalas. Australia could lead the way in the international fight against climate change by making a commitment to protecting the koala and its habitat.
“Instead, our political leaders remain stuck in a robber baron mentality, actively pursuing activities which increase Australia’s carbon emissions, whilst ignoring the benefits of protecting existing forests.”
Source: Brisbane Times and The Sun-Herald
Save Eumundi Team is a group of people who are keen to see our environment protected and insisting that the Queensland State Government and its agencies (like Powerlink) consider viable alternatives rather than the business as usual approach to electricity generation and transmission.
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I phoned today (Monday 30th Nov) The Australian Government’s Dept of Environment, Heritage and the Arts in Canberra and (finally after speaking to a string of people who didn’t know what I was talking about!) spoke to an informed lady who advised that the Threatened Species Scientific Committee (TSSC) are due to make their decision by end September 2010. So, it is at this time when the TSSC will make their recommendations to Peter Garrett MP.
This lady did say that end September 2010 is the statutory timeframe, but she felt that it could be earlier. She also advised that sometime soon (“didn’t know when, but it could be reasonably imminent”) a list of nominations for threatened, vulnerable or endangered species will be prepared for public comment. I was informed that this should be well advertised in the mainstream media as well as on the web.
So, we all have some time to write to the Minister and others to garner support for listing the koala as threatened. This iconic, uniquely Australian species, needs our support and they need it NOW. If you only write just one letter in your lifetime to a politician requesting change (for the better!) then, this is that time. Please, go to this website, Contacts, Federal Government and email or write to the contacts listed there. People power does work…look at the Traveston Dam issue!