In New South Wales (Australia) the green light has been given for the expansion of a quarry that will steal 52 hectares of natural habitat from koalas
In Australia 52 hectares of land will be "stolen" from koalas with the aim of enlarging a quarry that will thus be able to produce more. The Federal Minister for the Environment, Sussan Ley, gave the final approval to the project.
The expansion of a quarry of rocks useful for the construction sector of Sidney puts in serious danger an animal species already severely tested in recent years, that of the koalas. These animals will once again be sacrificed in the name of profit.
The project plans to clear 52 hectares of land in the New South Wales to give more space to the cava at Brandy Hill, in order to double the production of rocks useful for the construction sector. Too bad, however, that this land was a precious natural habitat for koalas.
Although Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley has been under strong pressure from the community in recent months to intervene and stop the Brandy Hill project in Port Stephens, after it was approved by the New South Wales government in July, Ley has decided to go ahead and give his green light.
Final approval for the quarry expansion was given but on one condition: that it included a 74-hectare koala habitat corridor. In practice, the managers of the quarry will have to plant new trees suitable for marsupials and commission surveys on the site to check if there are koalas in any tree to be felled and in that case create a favorable corridor for moving to the new habitat.
This is how the minister justified her choice:
“We hired an independent expert who conducted an updated investigation and found one to two koalas and concluded that the quality of the vegetation was such that this was not the primary breeding habitat and that koalas will tend to cross it and not in large numbers "
Even the minister is convinced that the expansion of the quarry is a good solution also for koalas as a sort of "corridor" will be created for the animals, with trees and land capable of providing the correct habitat to move around the area. area.
"This is actually a good conservation result for koalas," he concluded.
Naturally, environmentalists and the local population categorically deny this version of events and point out that there is no time to plant new trees. The koalas left in Port Stephens, even following the devastating fires last year, are only 200 to 400 specimens.
Among other things, in September, the campagna Save Port Stephens Koalas commissioned a report from Newcastle University ecologists on the situation of marsupials in the quarry area. It was discovered that many koala reproductions occur in the area and in the conclusions the experts specified that the project "would cut a vital habitat corridor for the local koala population".
The petition to save the koalas of New South Wales in which, among others, several local celebrities, among others, did not help.
The citizens of the area are shocked and upset by the decision taken, also considering the risk of extinction that the koalas are running.
In June, a parliamentary inquiry in New South Wales found that 5.000 koalas had died during the summer fires and warned that koalas could become extinct in the Australian state within 30 years, unless they took action to urgently protect their habitat. natural.
The warnings, however, seem not to have been sufficiently heeded.
Fonte: ABC Net /Facebook
Read also:
- Do koalas run out of hope? Fires in Australia have destroyed 80% of their habitat
- Koalas will go extinct before 2050, the alarm of Australian scientists
- Massacre of koalas, slaughtered on their trees by loggers' bulldozers
