Prime koala habitat to be logged after Tuckers Nob State Forest left out of Great Koala National Park plans
New CQUniversity research shows a state forest in New South Wales set to be logged in the next 12 months is home to at least 25 individual koalas.
The Tuckers Nob State Forest near Coffs Harbour was excluded from the proposed Great Koala National Park area when it was announced by the New South Wales government in September.
The area is not covered by the government’s temporary logging moratorium and there are now calls for the reclassification of the surveyed area from plantation to koala habitat.
Researchers from CQUniversity’s Koala Research-CQ, the Koala History and Sustainability Research Cluster and Griffith University collaborated with conservation organisations and citizen scientists to survey more than 142 hectares zoned as plantation.
The survey revealed clear signs of koala activity, including scat evidence and thermal drone imagery identifying 25 individual koalas.
The findings published by MDPI in its journal WILD, challenged current assumptions that timber plantations lacked conservation value.
"These aren’t just plantations; they’re home to one of Australia’s most iconic and endangered animals," CQUniversity’s Dr Rolf Schlagloth said.
“We’ve shown remnants of original forest exist within these zones and are actively used by koalas.”
Using historical aerial photography, mapping tools such as SIX Maps and Google Earth Pro, and modern drone-mounted thermal imaging, the team pinpointed critical areas of undisturbed habitat within the plantation.
Dr Schlagloth said excluding areas such as the Tuckers Nob study site from the proposed Great Koala National Park footprint for the sake of logging was both “short-sighted and inconsistent with current conservation strategies”.
Koalas are listed as endangered across most of their range in eastern Australia, and populations in New South Wales have continued to decline due to habitat loss, fragmentation, and climate stress.
The authors of the study argued all high-value koala habitat – regardless of zoning – must be protected, and future conservation efforts must treat the integrity of the entire reserve system as paramount.
“The proposed Great Koala National Park is a key policy initiative aimed at reversing these trends, but ongoing logging within its proposed boundaries threatens to undermine its effectiveness before it is even established,” Griffith University’s Dr Timothy Cadman said.
“The Tuckers Nob site sits outside the proposed Great Koala National Park boundaries, but we’ve shown when you look closer and reveal evidence that koalas are in fact residing there, the initiative needs to be re-examined and a holistic lens applied to it.”
The authors also called for the Great Koala National Park to be designated as a World Heritage site to secure long-term protection for koalas and the ecosystems they depended on.
