Which do you think is more precious: koalas or coal mines?
Across Australia koalas and the forests they call home face growing pressures from logging, mining and developments that are destroying koala habitat, piece by precious piece. They need stronger federal protection than ever before.
In NSW, the state government recently approved the destruction of large tracts of valuable koala habitat in North West NSW for yet another coal mine.
Now only the federal government stands in the way of the bulldozers.
The Leard Forest is the largest remaining biodiversity refuge on the already heavily cleared Liverpool Plains. It’s home to a koala population that will have nowhere else to go if the proposed Maules Creek coal mine goes ahead - a massive open-cut coal mine proposal that would destroy 2,000 hectares, or around 2,800 football fields, of forest.
My colleague Greens MP Cate Faehrmann, who is the Greens lead NSW Senate candidate for 2013, recently visited the Leard Forest and saw first hand just why this forest is too precious to lose.
Cate found this koala in Leard Forest, resting low in the canopy during a particularly hot day
Koalas in NSW, Queensland and ACT have been listed as a vulnerable species. They are under threat because their habitat is fast diminishing. Each new development and mine threatens the future of the species.
Along with koalas, 25 other threatened plant and animal species are also at serious risk of losing their habitat if the Maules Creek mine goes ahead, especially the critically endangered white box gum woodland.
If we are to care for the Leard Forest koalas, Minister Burke has to reject the proposed Maules Creek mine.
Write your message of support today.
Yours sincerely,
Lee Rhiannon
Greens Senator for NSW
P.S. Far from acting to protect our precious environment, Tony Burke is actually preparing to trash most of his own powers at a Council of Australian Governments meeting on December 7. Big business and mining giants think it should be easier for them to dig, chop down and build whatever and wherever they want, and Tony Burke agrees. Tell him we need the federal government to protect koalas and other precious wildlife and places.
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