This koala is a regular visitor to an Inverloch garden. Photo: John Cuttriss
By Ed Thexton
WITHOUT doubt the charismatic koala is the linking animal of Gippsland, from Lang Lang in the west to Foster in the east, from Morwell in the north to Inverloch in the south. In this bedraggled region of privatised forests and farmland, koalas remain in tiny areas of indigenous vegetation, HPV Plantations, across farmlands and into the towns.
That the koala has persisted until now is a modern-day miracle. It was all but shot to extinction in the 1920s. With native forests in the Strzelecki Ranges almost completely cleared and the flatter coastal country of the Bass Coast Shire down to just 14 per cent indigenous vegetation cover, it’s a wonder a-tree dependent species is here at all. Who’d have thought clearing it all would have such an effect on the dependent animal species! Just goes to show you good looks will only take you so far.
WITHOUT doubt the charismatic koala is the linking animal of Gippsland, from Lang Lang in the west to Foster in the east, from Morwell in the north to Inverloch in the south. In this bedraggled region of privatised forests and farmland, koalas remain in tiny areas of indigenous vegetation, HPV Plantations, across farmlands and into the towns.
That the koala has persisted until now is a modern-day miracle. It was all but shot to extinction in the 1920s. With native forests in the Strzelecki Ranges almost completely cleared and the flatter coastal country of the Bass Coast Shire down to just 14 per cent indigenous vegetation cover, it’s a wonder a-tree dependent species is here at all. Who’d have thought clearing it all would have such an effect on the dependent animal species! Just goes to show you good looks will only take you so far.
 Watch the trailer "The Koalas" will screen at the Stadium Cinema in Leongatha at 6.50 pm on Saturday June 22, followed by a Q&A with Anthony Amis (Friends of the Earth) and Susie Zent (Friends of Strzelecki Koalas). Ed Thexton and Tim Smith will interview filmmaker Georgia Wallace-Crabb on the conservation conversation hour on South Coast FM at 9:30 am on Monday morning June 17. | Koalas are still copping it. Sandmining and the sale of the Holden Proving Ground threaten its last substantial pocket in the west; in the east, HPV Plantations is clearing natural forest at Turton’s Creek to replace it with blue gum or – worse – pine; in the north, HPV is clearing natural forest and blue gum plantations surrounding the koala stronghold of the Morwell National Park; and in and around Inverloch, cars, cows and dogs threaten, harass and kill koalas. The koala is not living the good life in modern-day Gippsland. You would be aggrieved enough for any koala but the koalas that we are talking about here are no ordinary koala. These are the Strzelecki Koala. Low in number, at about 2000, but high in genetic originality. The Strzelecki Koala is outwardly indistinguishable from your Phillip or French Island or South Australian koala. But as the genetic revolution has shown for humans and other life forms it’s all in the genes. The genetics of the Strzelecki Koala are distinct. That distinctiveness may well be the saviour of the rest of the southern koala populations riven with the limitations of inbreeding and attendant diseases. |
Amazingly it seems we have to thank a patch of bush a bit less than 600 hectares for the existence of the Strzelecki Koala. I am led to believe the owners resisted the push to clear amidst the frenzy of near universal clearing early last century. Just one small patch of bush. In it the preferred food trees, the Mountain Grey Gum, the Blue Gum and the Strzelecki Gum, persist to this day. This patch is now the Morwell National Park. Elsewhere, it is all but gone. The Strzelecki Gum is now so rare as to be listed as vulnerable under the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act.
Adams Creek Nature Conservation Reserve. Photo: Dave Newman Now consider the Holden Proving Ground over 100 years later. Protected from clearing for at least the past 70 years. A similar area (1200 hectares), also known for its Strzelecki Gums, largely uncleared, unburnt, unbashed and, thanks to the intact bush buffer surrounding it, un-weed-invaded and the Strzelecki Koala recorded in the adjoining bush of the Western Port Woodlands. Surely this is a national park in the offing.
The toil and strife chronicled in The Land of the Lyre Bird - A Story of Early Settlement in the Great Forest of South Gippsland, first published in 1920, are not over. The days and ways may be different but now, more than ever, we need toil and strife to match the gutsy resilience of the Strzelecki Koala. Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to it.
Please come to The Koalas and hear how you can join with others to fight for the existence of our Strzelecki Koala.
The toil and strife chronicled in The Land of the Lyre Bird - A Story of Early Settlement in the Great Forest of South Gippsland, first published in 1920, are not over. The days and ways may be different but now, more than ever, we need toil and strife to match the gutsy resilience of the Strzelecki Koala. Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to it.
Please come to The Koalas and hear how you can join with others to fight for the existence of our Strzelecki Koala.