Koala lovers call for action to save gum trees
© 2001 Reuters
July 27, 2001
CANBERRA - Koala conservationists called on the Australian government yesterday to strengthen laws to protect the cuddly marsupial's habitat and ensure its future.
The eucalypt leaf chewing koala is not an endangered animal in Australia, with estimates of at least 100,000 animals living along the country's eastern coastal region.
But on the eve of the 13th national Save the Koala Day, conservationists said housing and roads were eroding the native animal's forest habitat, posing a long-term threat.
"If we protect the koala now before endangerment we think they will have a better chance from a genetic point of view," said Deborah Tabart of the Australian Koala Foundation.
The foundation has urged the environment ministry to declare the koala a species of "national significance" and give federal authorities the power to step in - as it would with endangered species - if koala habitat was threatened.
"The national significance trigger is warranted because there is no current state or federal legislation that steps in to protect koalas when they are in danger," Tabart, the foundation's executive director, told Reuters.
But a spokeswoman for Environment Minister Robert Hill said the government did not see the need for extra legislation because Australia's six states and two territories already had laws to protect the tourists' favourite Australian animal.
"The scientific evidence we have received is that the koala is not threatened on a national basis," she told Reuters.
Estimates differ but the 15-year-old foundation reckons the koala population has dropped to around 100,000 from several million about 100 years ago.
Millions of koalas were shot in the 1920s for their fur and conservationists say that more recently the population has fallen because of lost habitat, such as eucalypt or gum tree forests, and cars and dogs, believed to kill up to 4,000 koalas a year.
The foundation estimates 80 percent of koala habitat has been destroyed since white settlement of Australia 200 years ago.