WE LIVE in core koala country – all of us – whether we live in the urban areas of our local towns or in the more rural confines surrounding those towns.
Even if our home property is not surrounded by koala food trees or trees that give koalas a tree-heights pathway to those food trees or even along a ground surface pathway free from depredations by dogs, wild cats and other beasties – essentially, we live in core koala country.
Why? Because we live where koalas are likely to live, or pass on their way to finding a place to live, when displaced by development.
And displacement is a very real issue as Ipswich’s urban development sprawls wider and wider.
But developers who are allowed to develop urban blocks in core koala habitat areas or even known habitat areas (places where koalas are sighted but food trees aren’t abundant) have to pay a hefty financial offset to fund the restoration of koala habitat in non-developed areas.
So why is there a problem?
Research indicates that the main problem is finding suitable ‘offset’ areas that could be rehabilitated into offering a prime space for development-fleeing koalas.
Secondly, the financial offset calculation more often than not does not fully fund the rehabilitation work.
So, what’s the answer?
Charge developers more?
We could (or at least the government could) but then we run up against another problem – new home affordability.
Cap developer profits or cap local and state government fees and charges?
That’s a possibility – capping profits on land where koala habitat is to be destroyed to make way for housing blocks would make that type of land less desirable.
Capping government fees and charges is also attractive but unlike private enterprise, which is governed by market forces, the governments would just pass on the ‘loss’ to taxpayers or ratepayers in a different way.
So, what’s the answer?
One minor solution would be to exclude homeowners with dogs from areas inside a housing estate, which have retained the koala habitat, and green pathways to the habitat, as part of the parkland allocation.
I emphasise here that I don’t have anything against dogs or large cats but it does make sense to exclude them from anywhere there is a potential interface with koala habitat.
Placing the burden of finding suitable offset habitat on the developer may also assist in stopping the koala from becoming extinct – it would definitely be an incentive if it were made part of the development application process.
And perhaps the council could also market the need for offset habitat … what’s involved in having habitat rehabilitated on a private property and the like.
Just as importantly, if there was some real collaboration between those with expertise and those in government, to identify where koalas are relocating to now the once forested areas around the city are disappearing – stay ahead of the koalas and identify suitable habitat as no-go-development zones. If developers know there is a no-go-development caveat on parcels of land then there will be no temptation to purchase it.
These are merely the musings of someone without any expertise in the field of koalas and their habitat but it does seem to me that the solution to the issue needs an all-in-collaboration approach.
And we’d best be working on it soon before the issue disappears because there are no longer any koalas to protect.
