Our Koalas Need You. Help Save the Ballina 200!

By AM Wednesday, February 25, 2015

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Steven Katsineris makes an appeal to save koalas. Steven Katsineris is an Australian freelance writer of articles on Palestine, Cyprus and the rest of the Middle East region, political prisoners and human rights, environmental and social issues. He has been actively involved in the Palestine solidarity movement for over forty years. Steven Katsineris lives with his family in Melbourne, Australia.

  

• Koala Appeal from IFAW. 

 

We need you to get out your pen and paper for the koalas in Ballina. A critical colony of over 200 koalas is at risk of extinction if Stage 10 of the Pacific Highway goes ahead. There's a group of koalas we call the Ballina 200 because they are a special, source population in this area. But they are facing local extinction, thanks to the bulldozers that will be moving in to clear their habitat for the Pacific Highway upgrade. 

 

Please help us get 10,000 signatures on a petition to the NSW Parliament to trigger an urgent parliamentary debate. The NSW Government recently gave the green light to the route, despite the fact that it runs straight through the Blackwall Range Wildlife Corridor. This corridor is a wildlife hotspot, home to many endangered species, including this nationally-significant colony of over 200 koalas, known to be a 'linchpin' colony and vital for the survival of coastal koalas.

 

We need to tell the government to find an alternative route for the highway. The area of the highway upgrade is also home to a population of about 100 rare long-nosed potoroos, a small bandicoot-like creature, as well as many other vulnerable native species.

 

The route will also impact an important indigenous area, decimating sites of significant Aboriginal cultural heritage, including historic scar trees that bear the marks of bark being cut out to make canoes, containers and shields.

 

Despite 50,000 voices demanding a new route and new population models revealing that the upgrade will cause the extinction of koalas in the region, the government is still ploughing ahead with their preferred route.

 

There is still a chance to save the Ballina 200, but we need your help. If we generate 10,000 signatures on a petition, then we can force the NSW Parliament to re-examine their fate. We need to collect 10,000 hard copy signatures by 31 March for the issue to be debated in the new NSW Parliament following the election in March.

 

Even if you don’t live in NSW, you can still sign the petition. You don’t have to live in NSW to sign. But we do need handwritten signatures so please click on- info.au@ifaw.org; to download the petition. Collect as many signatures as you can and send them back to IFAW by 31 March 2015. (Address is on the petition printout). Then please ask all your friends, family and neighbours to sign too. Gather as many signatures as you can and send them back to IFAW as soon as possible. Please act now and tell as many people as you can about the Ballina 200. I know that we can do this together. Just 10,000 signatures stand between them and extinction. Thank you so much for your support.

  

International Fund for Animal Welfare, 6 Belmore St, Surry Hills, Sydney, NSW 2010.

 

I received this appeal from IFAW, please read and act on it.

 

 

 

Thanks, Steven Katsineris.