Death of an Aussie icon? Koalas facing extinction by 2050
The government should take immediate action to prevent koala extinction, the World Wildlife Fund has urged, as numbers of the iconic Aussie animal continue to drop.
According to the WWF, koala populations have rapidly declined in New South Wales and Queensland due to excessive tree-clearing.
“Australia is the only developed country home to an internationally-recognised ‘deforestation hotspot’,” said WWF’s International President Pavan Sukhdev.
“The rate of tree clearing in Australia’s east is comparable to the destruction taking place in the Amazon and Borneo … The world is watching to see how Australia will respond to koalas being driven towards extinction due to excess tree clearing.”
The Guardian reported that Queensland clears more land every year than the rest of Australia combined together, with 395,000 hectares or more than 1,500 football fields worth of woodland being cleared in 2015-16 in the state. Meanwhile in NSW, only 9 per cent of the land is in a healthy or near-natural condition, according to Daisy Barham from the Nature Conservation Council of NSW.
While there is no widely-accepted number of total populations, there is a consensus among experts and authorities that koala numbers are falling.
A 2018 WWF report claimed that koala population has declined from 31,400 to 21,000 between 1990 and 2010. It projected that if current trends continue, koalas may be extinct by 2050.
However, the Australian Koala Foundation said it is “practically impossible” to get an accurate count in the wildlife. Richard Kingsford, a professor of environmental science at the University of NSW also told the AAP FactCheck that the 2050 prediction is “blunt” and could not yet be determined.
A senate report nevertheless confirmed that the numbers of koala had “undergone marked decline over three generations”.
The WWF has offered to work with governments and communities to halt the koala decline.
The issue on koala preservation has become a contentious topic ahead of the NSW election this Saturday as the candidates for the Coffs Harbour electorate debate the need for a Great Koala National Park in the area.