Koala Expert Panel delivers interim report

An interim report has been prepared by the Queensland Government’s Expert Koala Panel, highlighting a lack of strategic regional vision as a key failure of the current environmental protection system.

The Expert Panel was established by the Government to produce recommendations on the “most appropriate and realistic actions to ensure the long-term survival of koala populations in the wild in South East Queensland.”

Rather than the existing site-by-site approach to environmental protection, the Property Council has long called for the adoption of a strategic region-wide assessment of environmental considerations. This process would identify with certainty those areas that should be protected from urban uses, and those areas where urban uses are agreed to be the highest and best use of the land.

A full report with further recommendations will be delivered to the Government in mid-2017, which will feed into a new State Government koala strategy.