A state’s biggest environmental commitment faces a potential funding shortfall as analysis shows protecting key koala populations could cost more than $1.3 billion.
The analysis, based on advice from the under-siege forestry industry, comes as the sector proposes two smaller alternatives for the Great Koala National Park.
The park aims to link dozens of high-value koala habitat hubs near Coffs Harbour, protecting up to one in nine koalas living in NSW, Queensland and the ACT as well as 100 other native species.
But a report to be considered by the NSW cabinet in the next fortnight lays out the cost of the baseline proposal to unite a string of national parks and state forests into a sprawling 176,000-hectare estate.
Under conservationists’ goal for a park twice the size of Canberra, establishment costs would reach an estimated $1.36 billion within five years.
That includes $450 million in support to 2200 forestry workers, based on Victoria’s cost of ending native timber harvesting last January.
Paying out wood supply contracts and establishing new plantations would cost $709 million, according to the analysis commissioned by the forestry industry.
Only $80 million in state funds have been set aside for the park’s establishment.
The industry says a park one-fifth of the size could focus on areas with the highest populations of koalas and greater gliders while taking less than 10 per cent of the northeast wood supply.
“The cost of the current assessment area comes with a jaw-dropping price tag for taxpayers,” Australian Forest Products Association NSW chief executive James Jooste told AAP.
“This is an enormous cost on taxpayers, and it puts the hardwood timber industry on the chopping block.
“In response, the timber industry has offered two viable alternatives that strike a balance, creating a national park for koalas while protecting the hardwood industry on the north coast.”
The industry’s preferred option comes with a 37,000 hectare footprint at an estimated establishment cost of $273 million and 440 jobs.
An “acceptable” 58,000ha option, extending further into the slopes west of Coffs Harbour, 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.
Logging has continued in state forests inside the 176,000 park proposal area, although not since September 2023 in 106 koala hubs – areas of high-value habitat.
It comes as the state government faces mounting pressure over the impact of its own logging business on nature.
At least 5000 koalas were killed in the 2020 Black Summer bushfires and a subsequent parliamentary inquiry found they would be extinct by 2050 without urgent government intervention to stop habitat loss.
An estimated 12,111 koalas live in the land earmarked for the Great Koala National Park.
Official estimates have the combined koala population in NSW, Queensland and the ACT at between 95,000 and 238,000.
The NSW government said the proposal from the industry advisory panel and two other panels will be considered before a final decision on the park’s footprint.
“We have always been clear that we need a comprehensive assessment process which takes into account environmental, economic, social, ecological and cultural issues,” Environment Minister Penny Sharpe said in a statement.
“This is being undertaken.
“The Great Koala National Park is the government’s biggest environmental commitment, it will be delivered.”
