‘Great big holes’ undermine Minns government’s key park promise

Proponents of the long-awaited Great Koala National Park warn that the Minns government’s signature conservation policy will fail to protect koalas and fall short of the promised world-class reserve without urgent changes to its proposed boundaries.

This comes as the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) released an updated map showing the proposed boundaries of the park altered from the previous published version in September, while negotiations with Forestry Corporation of NSW continue behind the scenes. The map, dated December, was sent out this month alongside a public survey on the activities and facilities the community wants to see in the park.

Ashley Love, the man anointed the “godfather of the Great Koala National Park” by fellow conservationists and Environment Minister Penny Sharpe for coming up with the concept 15 years ago, has called for urgent assessment of pockets of forest left unprotected because they are labelled as plantation.

“They’ve just let Forestry [Corporation] claim what areas they argue are plantations … and then they’re allowing them to claim what buffer areas they want around those plantations to supposedly protect them,” Love told this masthead.

“It’s eating great big holes within the Great Koala National Park, including koala hubs and areas of high koala habitat value and areas of connectivity and important boundary areas to the [park] that are all left out.”

Love said this jeopardised the integrity of the protection of koala habitats, especially on the coast, where there was also pressure from urban development. That would undermine efforts to ensure the long-term survival of koalas and a possible bid to achieve World Heritage listing for the Great Koala National Park, he said.

Koalas are listed as endangered in Queensland, NSW and the ACT, and the national park is billed as an effort to save them by protecting and linking habitat from the coast to the mountains. In December 2025 the NSW government reported that the estimated statewide population was 274,000 koalas, compared with fewer than 30,000 in 2022, after a comprehensive survey using drones and acoustic recorders provided more accurate figures.

Love wrote to Sharpe this week, saying, “as far as achieving a ‘world-class’ national park, the proposal comes up well short”, and attaching a 32-page report on the specific areas that he argues should be considered for inclusion.

For example, the Pine Creek, Orara West and Tuckers Nob state forests south-west of Bellingen have “the largest and most significant coastal koala population in NSW”, Love said, yet most of it was excluded from the park because Forestry Corporation claimed it as plantation.

Along the Bellinger River were areas planted out with flooded gum for a pulp mill that was never built. While it would yield low-quality saw-logs it was, Love said, prime koala habitat.

The Minns government has consistently said all plantations would be excluded from the park, a decision made at the outset that led to an assessment area dotted with holes because plantations often sit alongside native forest logging compartments.

Previous rounds of forest reforms in NSW have considered the conservation value of both native forests and plantations, and Love said 16 national parks and nature reserves in the region included substantial areas of former plantations.This included Bongil Bongil National Park, where Premier Chris Minns and three of his ministers announced the proposed boundaries and a logging moratorium last September.

In NSW law, a timber plantation is defined as an area of land where the predominant trees forming the canopy have been planted, including by scattering seed. While native forest must be selectively logged, plantations can be clear felled.

The history and purpose of plantations on the Mid North Coast are heavily contested, with environmentalists claiming widespread conversion of native forest to plantation. Forestry Corporation rejects these claims and has previously told this masthead that it sometimes reclassifies forest compartments as plantations, but only ever as a result of better mapping.

The Forest Stewardship Council refuses to certify NSW hardwood as sustainable because of issues about the classification of native forests versus plantations.

Love claims most plantation production on the North Coast is pulpwood sold to oversupplied markets in South-East Asia, or burned as “biofuel” for electricity production. A spokesperson for Forestry Corporation said hardwood plantations in the region provided the full range of products, but saw-logs for flooring, decking and furniture made up the highest proportion.

Shannon Scott from Thora Mill, a family-owned sawmill near Bellingen, previously told this masthead that environmentalists claimed to want a plantation sector but their actions suggested otherwise.

“I don’t think they want you to log anywhere full-stop,” Scott said.

Meredith Stanton, a forest activist at Billys Creek near Dorrigo, has analysed the changes between the new map and September version. While noting it was a PDF and not detailed, Stanton said some changes were visible.

About 117 hectares of native forest in the north-east of Tarkeeth State Forest that connected the Kalang and Bellinger rivers was proposed national park in September but had now reverted to state forest, Stanton said.

“It’s not clear what the rules around logging those native forest areas is going to be, whether they’ll remain protected, and that’s something we’re very concerned about,” Stanton said.

The map also suggested some tiny plantation plots fully surrounded by park would be absorbed into the protected area, she said.

Love said NPWS staff told him they were in negotiations with Forestry Corporation. However, conservation groups with detailed data were excluded from the discussion, Love said, which meant that all the pressure was one-way.

The sporadic release of altered maps without explanation was “just not a professional process at all”, he said.

Forestry Corporation referred questions to the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. Sharpe’s office and the department said in a statement that “the government assessed 176,000 hectares of native state forest for inclusion into the GKNP [and] the work is continuing”.

Before the NSW government introduces legislation to create the park, it is waiting to learn whether it can earn Australian carbon credit units. The federal consultation on the proposed credits closes on Friday.

Legislation to create the park will require cross-bench and opposition support. Greens MP Sue Higginson said further assessment was required, rather than “following arbitrary lines on a map”.

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