Koalas,as you know,are. In June 2020,a NSW Upper House inquiry,having heard much learned scientific evidence,found that without urgent action “”. The Campbelltown koalas are the last chlamydia-free population in Greater Sydney and one of the few thriving colonies in the state.
You might think all those things would stop even the baddest of baddies fighting in court for the right to endanger these koalas further. Yet Lendlease has just done exactly that, against a legal attempt by Save Sydney’s Koalas to force it into better manners.
The development in question is Lendlease’s Figtree Hill,an immense and controversial redevelopment of a large chunk of the south of Campbelltown. Some 1700 houses are planned for stage 1 and an unknown number for stage 2,some four times as big.
None of this is good. Destroying farmland to peripheralise the poor is so last century. Out on the urban fringe where trees have fallen to profit,summer temperatures will approach 50C. Air conditioners will be permanently on. Public transport is non-existent. The nearest train station is a 10-minute drive. Nothing is walkable. So families that can least afford it need two or three vehicles apiece. All that gas,all that energy,all that carbon.
But worse still is fighting to render a beloved and vulnerable species more vulnerable still.
Naturally,the official version makes everything hunky dory. Campbelltown Council and the (which approved the DA last December) insist the development is “consistent with” both the 2020 and the Campbelltown Koala Plan of Management.
Similarly,Lendlease’s seduces potential residents with talk of rolling hills and “” bushland;a pretty koala underpass beneath Appin Road has the dreamy focus of a Harold Cazneaux bush idyll.
That’s the spin. But many are unpersuaded. Investor Australian Ethical,for example,supports other Lendlease projects but rejects Figtree Hill because it “”. Environmentalist and former Australian of the Year Jon Dee this development could destroy Lend Lease’s “very good sustainability reputation”.
What would it take,then,to make humans koala-compatible? It’s not easy. Even now,some nights,locals spot half a dozen koalas on the 80 kilometre per hour Appin Road. A map strewn with black crosses shows koala roadkill.
But cars are just the tip of it. Even the black summer fires,which killed maybe 4000 koalas,weren’t the worst. For decades,the main threat to koalas has been habitat loss. From 2017,when the NSW government replaced the Native Vegetation Act with the cynically named Biodiversity Conservation Act,land clearing soared and koala numbers plummeted.
Australia,despite its reputation for wilderness,has one of the developed world’s highest land-clearing rates. It also has one of the highest rates of extinction. Those dots are not hard to join. Within Australia,NSW is the worst land clearer. Before 2017,;in 2019,according to the government’s own report,that almost doubled to 60,800.
But it’s not just about quantity. The idea that “habitat” is a green splodge on a map,easily replaced with another green splodge,is the simplistic idiocy that generated the whole biobanking “offsets” farce.
Koalas need connectivity. They have home ranges,attachments to particular trees,but they also need to move – to escape fire and to live,breed,expand their gene pool and maintain disease resistance. Stuck in a dead end – known as a “koala sink” – they mope and dwindle.
This site sits at the nearest point between the Nepean River and Georges River bush corridors:a connection here,and across the raging Appin and Heathcote Roads,would link these koalas to the Blue Mountains populations. The Chief Scientist’s report recommends six such continuous corridors averaging 420 metres in width.
Lendlease insists it is “consistent” with this (it doesn’t use the word comply). Campbelltown Councillor Karen Hunt,in,declared hotly that corridors “have been provided in accordance with the requirements of the Chief Scientist”. Lendlease development director Arthur Ilias told the the company can’t widen the corridors because of the nearby retirement village. Pah.
That’s all demonstrably not so. Lendlease’s pretty road underpasses are neither committed nor required,so they may or may not happen. Their “corridors” are splodges – far fewer than necessary,far narrower – just 80 metres at many points – and,most crucially,fragmentary.
Splodge-for-splodge won’t do it. Nor will pretty drawings,nor buying “offsets” with money. The government says it’s “committed to protecting koala habitat”. The council,and Lendlease,concur. If that’s so,they need to make the corridors and the connections happen – not when and if,now,up front. Koalas,like cyclists,need continuity. Otherwise,they’re in the fast lane of dogs and cars,fighting for survival.
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