20/08/2026
💔If this is koala protection, the system is broken.
💩In fact, it’s completely #&@%*!
David Crisafulli MP, Jarrod Bleijie MP, Andrew Powell MP, Murray Watt - Senator for Queensland, Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner
🐨Koalas are endangered and are meant to be protected
🪵Yet you allow clear-felling of the very trees that sustain their lives, like this local example this week.
📊Within ~6kms of this site, 146 of our local koalas died last year - that we know of!
📍This mightn't look like habitat, but these trees were food, shelter, safety, cooling, and part of a koala movement corridor, which has been further severed.
📸Check out the ‘before’ photos from earlier this year!
🚫So critical were the trees, that the property was covered by a Brisbane City Council Vegetation Protection Order.🤡What a joke.
🏡It's a large block, full of trees where a corridor of trees could have been retained and a large development still achieved.
❌Instead, the only trees left standing are one token one on the back fenceline and a few along the front beside a road with multiple lanes, an intersection and a blind corner. One of the (lovely) workers advised that they were pending confirmation about destroying them too.
The value of this habitat (koala home range) can't be understated, particularly in this fragmented area.
👀A koala was reportedly in one of the trees on Tuesday, while clearing was taking place, but was thankfully noticed.
🌙A koala was seen later that night just a few houses away, looking confused, on Cavendish Rd.
🚧Yet another incident was recently reported for a koala that was struggling to navigate the construction fencing around their home.
😍Locals regularly saw koalas in, and entering, this site.
🐨Fresh koala scratches are visible on the remnants of trees lying on the ground.
The legislation fails to consider koala impacts
🐨Previously, koalas had a range of trees that they could move through on this site including trees deeper within the property, away from the road that connected them to the safer properties at the back of the block.
💔They now need to move more often to find suitable trees, will spend more time in trees along Cavendish Rd, likely cross the black spots on Cav Rd & Wyncroft St more often and – once development occurs - will no doubt be cut off from the trees that remain on adjoining properties by barriers such as walls and fences. This all increases the risk of injury and death to local koalas whose home range includes this area.
🚨And to do this in koala breeding season when koalas are particularly active is plain unacceptable. Of 893 koala incidents in our area last year (that we know of), more than 50% occurred between August and October.
🚑Community members rescue, treat and rehab koalas, often voluntarily (for free!), day and night. Yet they continue to be further exploited as endangered koala habitat disappears around them, increasing the likelihood of further trauma and death.
💔For our koalas, this is death by a thousand cuts, and the cuts are becoming deeper and more frequent. Unbelievably, some koalas are injured more than once in their short lives. It’s actually quite cruel to impose this on koalas!
📜State and local laws are failing to recognise habitat connectivity, let alone koala movement, behaviour and reliance on food trees and stepping-stone trees. And in that, it fails our koalas, community volunteers and future generations who are at risk of never seeing a koala in the wild.
💡We know that development is required, but it must be smart and responsible.
🐾It must include retaining some critical habitat trees, maintaining corridors and acknowledging that koalas need to move through the landscape to survive.
We know that worse is occurring on a bigger scale in other areas of Brisbane and Qld including the Redlands, Gold Coast, Ipswich and beyond (insert Qld LGA here) but seeing 2,500 m² of habitat destroyed just broke our hearts for our endangered koalas and local volunteers
🔫Ninety-nine years ago this month, the Qld Government allowed the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of koalas before international outrage finally forced change.
Today, with populations continuing to decline, our local and state koalas continue to be failed at every level, and we have to ask:
❓What will it take before koalas are genuinely protected?
🌳We must learn how to live alongside koalas and plan development around the wildlife that was here long before us.
📢Or at the very least, have the candour to admit that their survival simply isn't a priority.
How can you help?
📣Raise awareness of the plight of our koalas and the impact of habitat loss
🗣️Email and phone local, state and federal representatives and ask for:
▶️Improved protection for our local and state koalas including critical stepping stone trees and consideration of corridors and cumulative impacts.
▶️Firm targets to be committed to for reduced trauma incidents and increased populations.
▶️More transparency and accountability attached to developments. Consumers should understand the number of native trees destroyed and some type of payment from profits should be made to compensate the rescuers, carers and hospitals for the expected increase in injured, displaced, deceased and orphaned wildlife.
Koala Rescue Brisbane South Inc. Friends of Whites Hill Reserve Queensland Koala Society Inc Koala Rescue Redlands & Surrounds INC Queenslanders for Responsible Government Coorparoo Finger Gullies Bushcare Group Ormiston Koala Group North Brisbane Catchments Save Woogaroo Forest - Ipswich QLD
