Hard to see a future for Redland koalas | Editorial

Its aim is to show where these animals are and what habitat they are using.

Leading this Koala Action Group-inspired project is lauded scientist Deidre de Villiers. She has done influential research on the demise of koalas and her bona fides cannot be challenged.

Redland  bayside areas contain choice remnant vegetation in which a handful of koalas cling on. Some of this remnant vegetation is restricted to mere single trees.

Some trees are on private property, some on footpaths and others in parks and unused blocks of land. In fact, it’s hard to imagine more important trees in all of the Redlands than these on the coastal strip.

Despite their importance to these arboreal animals, many trees are under threat from developments small and large.

This makes it hard to see how our koalas will not go the way of their Gold Coast cousins.

At the coast where there was once a thriving coastal koala population, locals have to go to a theme park to see a miserable handful which are held in captivity for tourists.

Many developments like the badly-needed Toondah Harbour rebuild and the proposed Shoreline housing project at Redland Bay will take out relatively few trees but the increase in traffic, disturbance and restriction of movement by way of busy roads will surely have a negative impact.

When these nocturnal animals are forced to cross heavily used roads, you know their days are numbered.

When all these impacts are taken together, it’s hard to imagine how these creatures can survive or even have survived this long.

Redland City Council is taking action. 

It has thousands of hectares of conservation land, it is planting tens of thousands of trees.

Importantly, it has spent ratepayer money on a chlamydia trial and of late is attacking the issue of roaming dogs with some vigor despite councillors suffering unfair attacks from residents who see no personal responsibility towards their dogs, let alone koalas.

Will this be enough? Probably not if these coastal trees are whittled away.

If council is happy to let these trees go one by one – as occurs when large old blocks of land are split – it’s hard to imagine that one of Australia’s keynote species has any future among us.