Fur flies over billion-dollar koala park cost claims
Luke Costin |
A strong resolve remains to establish a sprawling national park to protect high-value koala habitat, despite analysis costing the move at $1.3 billion.
Environmentalists have firmly disputed the price tag put forward by the logging industry as a leaked document shows industry proposals for two smaller versions of the planned Great Koala National Park in NSW.
State cabinet is due to make a final decision within weeks on the boundaries of the park, which aims to link dozens of koala hubs near Coffs Harbour to protect 100 native species, including up to one in every eight koalas living in NSW, Queensland and the ACT.
The footprint could be as large as 176,000 hectares – twice the size of Canberra – including large swathes of existing state forest.
In a document obtained by AAP, an industry panel advised government that a full-sized park would cost 2200 jobs and require $450 million in workforce support.
But environmental groups shot down the estimate, saying it was up to 12 times too high.
Environment Minister Penny Sharpe said “a number of figures (were) floating around” as final decisions to set up the park approached.
“The thing I’ve learnt in forestry is that there are never any agreed facts and never any agreed figures,” she said on Wednesday.
Standing next to Treasurer Daniel Mookhey, Ms Sharpe was asked if there would be problems obtaining hundreds of millions of dollars to establish the park given only $80 million had been put aside.
“I’m not going to pre-empt how we are going to go with that except that (the treasurer) knows it’s an election commitment that we have to deliver,” she said.
“(It will be) a great park, a really important part of saving koalas and will drive economic growth in that area.”
The industry said a park one-fifth of the size could focus on areas with the highest populations of koalas and greater gliders while taking away less than 10 per cent of the northeast wood supply.
The 37,000ha footprint would cost about $273 million and 440 jobs, it estimated.
“The cost of the (176,000ha) current assessment area comes with a jaw-dropping price tag for taxpayers … and it puts the hardwood timber industry on the chopping block,” Australian Forest Products Association NSW chief executive James Jooste said.
An “acceptable” 58,000ha option would cost about $410 million and 660 jobs.
Each proposal substantially reduces the amount of coastal forest under protection, with areas around Woolgoolga and Nambucca Heads left out.
The industry’s native forest sector has been under siege in recent years, having made heavy losses and committed several wildlife offences.
Environmentalists have attacked the analysis as disingenuous and grossly inflated.
A Blueprint Institute assessment recently estimated the whole northeast NSW logging industry, including outside the national park footprint, would cost $215 million.
“There is no science and there is certainly no credible economics in the logging industry pitch,” Greens MP Sue Higginson said.
The North East Forest Alliance pointed to a 2021 University of Newcastle assessment that found the park would boost tourism and deliver a $1.18 billion economic boost with a net increase of 9100 jobs over 15 years.
“You can’t put a price on the next generation being able to see a koala in the wild and that is what a Great Koala National Park really offers for the people of NSW,” president Dailan Pugh said.
An estimated 12,111 koalas live in the land earmarked for the national park.
Official estimates place the headcount in NSW, Queensland and the ACT between 95,000 and 238,000.
AAP
