Letter to Editor June 08

Many residents have noticed the continued and escalating clearing of koala food trees and other natives within the Moreton Bay Regional Council area.  Recently, the Department of Main Roads removed trees on Youngs Crossing Road, Joyner, regularly used by koalas and other native wildlife.  No wildlife ecologist was present and legislation designed by the EPA to protect koalas was not adhered to.

The “Claytons” Koala Conservation Plan has not stopped the destruction or fragmentation of koala habitat.  Nor has it stopped koalas from being knocked out of trees cut down to extend roads.  It hasn’t reduced koala carnage on our roads or ensured dogs are restrained particularly at night to prevent them killing koalas.  Council’s Parks, Reserves and Landscape Services appear ambivalent about supporting voluntary groups eager to replant koala food trees and other natives in parks, reserves and open spaces because these plantings conflict with the “existing aesthetic amenity”.  What about providing a future for koalas and the native wildlife that call this region home?  I guess it just doesn’t fit in with Council’s “existing aesthetic amenity”. Koalas are dying, they suffer horrendous injuries or waste away from lack of food and I don’t understand why we aren’t all outraged.