BRISBANE'S G20 meeting of world leaders, designed to promote economic growth and peace, has fuelled the Redlands koala wars.
While pictures of global dignitaries cuddling koalas at the Brisbane summit were beamed around the world, Redland lobby groups, and at least one councillor, said the city missed a golden opportunity by putting development before wildlife.
Redland Koala Action Group made the claim as the fourth lot of significant koala habitat food trees were axed in Redlands in two months, at a site in Birkdale.
The national Australian Koala Foundation backed the Redland claims and called on US President Barack Obama to help save the species, listed as "vulnerable" in South East Queensland.
Redland Koala Action Group's Debbie Pointing said government and tourist promoters happily pushed the koala as the iconic Australian animal, but shied away from protecting it from developers.
"There won't be any koalas to show off to world leaders of the future or to Barack Obama's daughters if we don't make an effort to preserve the koala habitat we have left," she said.
"In the Redlands, we have consistently shown we don't value our koalas, which is out of step with the rest of the world."
Last week, Birkdale residents were shocked to find developers chopped down three tall koala habitat trees from Redlands Mobile Village at 22 Collingwood Road to make way for a four-lot subdivision.
The week before, a developer tagged more than 20 trees for axing to make way for a 24-lot project at Wellington Street, Ormiston.
The same week, four big koala eucalypts were chopped down from 37-45 Leon Street, Thorneside, and, at the end of October, eight koala habitat trees were levelled in Smith Street, Cleveland, for a 123-bed, three-storey aged care facility.
The lack of information to the community before the trees were cut prompted Division 10 councillor Paul Bishop to ask council to draft a Bushcare Area Management Plan.
The plan would include a binding but commonly-agreed set of rules for any works and a communication strategy.
Cr Bishop said he was disgusted a $920 fee, levelled on developers when their projects were completed, was paid only three times in the past year, despite more than 40 koala trees being cut or tagged to be axed.
He said state government changes in October meant some applications, which used to be "impact" assessable requiring community consultation, were now decided by council under "code" assessable rules.
Mayor Karen Williams slammed claims council was not looking after its koala population, which she said had been "steadily declining for years".
She said council had spent "literally hundreds of thousands of dollars" trying to keep local koalas and called for a community debate on the issue.
The mayor said council did not have control over all the trees that have been trimmed or removed.
Development was just one of the reasons for the animal's decline and, in the past five years, council planted 25,629 koala gum trees.
"We received 3000 requests from residents to remove trees in the past year the majority were not approved.
"Dogs, cats and disease also affect koalas so maybe council would be better off spending money researching ways to stop disease and finding better habitats," she said.