Further delays to declaring the park threaten thousands of hectares
Editors please note: Paul Hilton has specified that his video and stills are one time use only, no archiving, no resale and should be credited "Paul Hilton/Calumn Hockey for Earth Tree Images" The stills and video in the other folders does not have the same restrictions.
Logging in Sheas Nob State Forest © Paul Hilton - Calumn Hockey for Earth Tree Images
Dramatic new video captures the sights and sounds of the destruction of forest earmarked for the Great Koala National Park. It comes as an Indigenous Elder made an impassioned plea for the devastation to stop.
A drone filmed the brutality of logging heavy machinery just last week in Sheas Nob State Forest, inland from Coffs Harbour.
A harvester, weighing about 30 tonnes, grasped towering eucalypts with its hydraulic grabber as its chainsaw attachment sliced through trunks in seconds.
Next came the sound of the trunk cracking, followed by the crashing noise as trees many decades old hit the ground.
A skidder then dragged logs to a collection point, destroying forest floor vegetation and compacting the soil.
Conservation groups are sharing the vision so the public understands the damage happening right now to crucial koala habitat earmarked for inclusion in the Great Koala National Park.
A previous analysis by the North East Forest Alliance uncovered that logging has already occurred across 7,185 hectares within the Great Koala National Park assessment area since the Minns Government was elected.
A new report by Wilderness Australia and the National Parks Association of NSW reveals that Forestry Corp's publicly available harvest plans show logging is currently underway across a further 1,924 hectares within the assessment area.
Logging is scheduled to start in another 3,469 hectares within the next 6 months. If a decision is delayed for another 6 months, and if scheduled logging is completed, that adds up to just under 5,400 hectares of additional logging.
A delay of 6 months could take the total logged area to 12,578 hectares. That equals over 6,700 Sydney Cricket Grounds.
Indigenous Elder Uncle Micklo Jarrett, a Gumbaynggirr man of the Baga Baga clan, is distraught at logging in Ingalba State Forest which includes sacred Country. Uncle Micklo Jarrett said:
One of my main totems is the Dunggirr, the Koala. My identity and my being is sustained, nourished, upheld and defined by the Dunggirr.
For years now my totem the Dunggirr has been killed by the Forestry Corporation of NSW including in many, many sites sacred to me and my people such as Little Newry (the eastern edge of our sacred mountain Nunguu Mirrarl). In the southern parts of our Country there are the most important Dunggirr sacred sites and landscapes with dreaming stories and songlines for the Dunggirr extending back for many thousands of years.
The main songline is from Yarriabini on the coast to the west through Ingalba. In the last week the Forestry Corporation of NSW has destroyed the best Dunggirr habitats on this songline in forests that the NSW Government promised to protect.
For too long now our forests and our totems have been destroyed by the Forestry Corporation despite me and my people asking for it to stop.
For the benefit and well-being of all in the Gumbaynggirr Nation we MUST stop logging our forests and the entire 176 000 hectare Great Koala National Park must be declared immediately because that is what our Government promised us.
It's like you are erasing my history, my culture, you have to stop now, you promised us a Great Koala National Park and you have to stop the destruction of my Country.
Uncle Micklo Jarrett © Mark Graham
Satellite images make a mockery of claims that selective logging is occurring with conservationists saying that logging will result in a "Swiss cheese" Great Koala National Park because of all the holes left in forest cover.
A new poll reveals a large majority of voters support the creation of the Great Koala National Park across the NSW mid-north coast in the state seats of Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour, and Oxley.
Left: Satellite images show part of Ingalba State Forest pre logging 6 October 2024 and (right) after logging 19 January 2025 © Blicks River Guardians
Bob Debus, Chair of Wilderness Australia said:
If the government wants to create a big national park, with real conservation integrity, that preserves the best remaining habitat for koalas, then they have to stop logging it.
To authorise thousands of hectares more logging and then declare them as conservation reserve defies common sense.
It has reached the point where I feel the government would be wise to act to put a stop to the ongoing destruction of its promised park.
Darren Grover, Head of Regenerative Country, WWF-Australia said:
The video will be shocking to many people. It shows the brutal efficiency of heavy logging machinery destroying trees which will take many decades to replace, if at all.
But Forestry Corp's hardwood division, the part responsible for native forest logging, is the opposite of efficient. It has run up losses of more than $70 million in the last four years.
I'm sure taxpayers are not happy that a state government business has run up losses like this in the process of degrading forests and endangering wildlife.
People want this Park. They want to save koalas. Time to make it happen
Gary Dunnett, Chief Executive Officer, National Parks Association of NSW said:
The Great Koala National Park proposal was designed around two basic principles: to protect as much as possible of the core Koala habitats and populations of the region; and to focus exclusively on existing National Parks and State Forests.
The reason for concentrating on public lands is that determining their future is the responsibility of the Premier of the day.
This report paints a stark picture of what this means for Premier Minns' reputation- the longer he delays declaring the new park, the more koalas will be needlessly lost.
Jenny Weber, Campaigns Manager, Bob Brown Foundation said:
Every day the shocking destruction continues in Koala habitat in the forests that were promised protection years ago.
Premier Minns must stop the bulldozers now. It can and must happen, for koala and greater glider survival, for climate benefits and for the majority of Australians who want native forest logging to end.
