The measure does not affect the other two states with koalas, South Australia and Victoria.whose populations of these animals are not considered endangered.
The minister also indicated that under the National Environmental Law, she will coordinate next week with the two state governments of New South Wales and Queensland, as well as that of the Australian Capital Territory, which includes Canberra, a recovery plan.
The Executive of Canberra, who is seeking re-election in this year’s elections in Australia, has earmarked some 74 million local dollars ($53 million) to protect koalasa very popular cause in the country.
According to official research from 2020, koalas could be extinct from eastern Australia by 2050 due to continued destruction of their habitats and the increasingly frequent natural disasters that hit the region.
Although the official figures register 180 thousand copies in the east of the countryDeb Tabart, of the Koala Foundation, assured the local public broadcaster ABC that there are actually between 50,000 and 80,000 copies left in the entire country.
“In 2019, right after the bushfires, Minister Law brought us all together at a round table and I handed her the koala habitat atlas of their entire geographic range, which has taken us 23 years to create,” Tabart said. .
This animal native to Australia, which also suffers from chlamydia that can cause death, has lost much of its habitat in Australia as a result of urban, agricultural and mining development, and also due to climate change, as well as the commercialization of their skins until the 1930s.
The koala (Phascolarctos cinereus), which in the aboriginal language means “without drinking” – alluding to the fact that 90 percent of its hydration comes from the eucalyptus leaves it eats – is especially sensitive to any change in the environment.
The koala, which spends about 20 hours a day dozing or resting and uses the remaining four hours to feed on the leaves of various species of eucalyptus was one of the biggest victims of the forest fires of the so-called “Black Summer” of 2019-2020which killed more than 60 thousand copies.