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Environment Minister Sussan Ley has announced the koala has been added to the list of endangered animals.Credit:Janie Barrett

The iconic species was first listed as vulnerable in NSW,ACT and Queensland 2012. A vulnerable listing recognises that a species faces a high risk of extinction in the medium term. An endangered listing means a species is at high risk of extinction in the short term.

Koalas have suffered a rapid decline. It’s just 10 years since the species was listed as vulnerable in 2012 by former Environment Minister Tony Burke.

Land clearing for urban and agricultural development as well as feral predators are the biggest koala-killers. It isestimated as many as one-third of NSW’s koalas – about 10,000 animals – perished in the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires and the preceding drought,and Queensland’s population shrunk by about 50 per cent in the past decade.

“The impact of prolonged drought,followed by the black summer bushfires,and the cumulative impacts of disease,urbanisation and habitat loss over the past twenty years have led to the advice,” Ms Ley.

An endangered listing doesn’t create extra rules to protect wildlife habitat. But the upgraded status may generate greater focus on conservation and more rigorous assessment of project developments by the government. The Environment Department is currently developing a koala recovery plan that could also create more stringent protections.

“The new listing highlights the challenges the species is facing and ensures that all assessments under the (Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act) will be considered not only in terms of their local impacts,but with regard to the wider koala population,” Ms Ley said.

The federal government announced in January a $50 million commitment over the next four years for habitat restoration,population monitoring and research into animal health. It followed a funding commitment of $74 million in 2019,for habitat protection and restoration,koala health research,and the government’s National Koala Monitoring Program.

Environment groups welcomed the federal government’s funding initiatives and called for further protections for koala habitat.

“This money is much needed,but without stronger laws and major landholder incentives to protect koala habitat their forest homes will continue to be bulldozed and logged,” said WWF Australia landscape restoration manager Tanya Pritchard said in January.

Humane Society International senior campaign manager Alexia Wellbelove said at the time the funding must come “in combination with a national recovery plan,and stronger national and state environment laws”.

Humane Society International,WWF and International Fund for Animal Welfare applied to the federal government to “uplist” koalas from vulnerable to endangered. The Environment Department recommended the move in October. The statutory timeframe for the minister to consider the declaration would have allowed Ms Ley to wait until after the likely May election to make the announcement.

In November last year Sussan Ley announced apopulation census to identify key habitat in Queensland,NSW,Victoria and South Australia,including mandatory annual reporting for state governments on koala populations and conservation strategies.

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