The Great Koala National Park
is desperately needed. The urgency has increased since so many koalas and so much habitat has been lost in NSW in these fires.
‘The Great Koala National Park will give our dwindling koala population the habitat they need to thrive again. By adding 175,000ha of state forests to existing protected areas to form a 315,000ha reserve in the Coffs Harbour hinterland.
Koala numbers plummeted by a third in the 20 years between 1990 and 2010. That is only three koala generations! We must take action now, not wait for numbers to dwindle further. The Great Koala National Park will protect our national icon.’ SEE more details.
Barely coherent, the spectrum winnowed, fogged, Dec 21
Black Cormorants fly in from a smoking ceremony,
the estuary radiates maximal beauty in any condition.
I leave to chair a meeting for ‘Koala Day’, an event giving trees
to land owners, a koala dog will sniff around a new garden
and poetry prizes handed out. Half our population is gone.
Save an iconic species and you save off-the-radar lives:
fungi, orchids, diminutive pagan fugitives, amphibians
like the Pouched Frog. The elite need the web.
A Pied Oystercatcher jumps this slow gunslinger
in Nambucca’s mangroves. The Sooty is clearly audible,
tapping oyster shells which I thought were off the menu.
A Great Egret fiddles, spending ages dunking (with
sinuous grace) and wrestling a small fish down its gullet.
Cormorants swim, fly and perch, have no need for colour.
Our energy has enlarged fire’s territory to the earth’s rim,
but a boisterous Brown Honeyeater brings some relief,
birds spring flight on our limitations, surprise our expectations.
From a suite of poems, Bushfire Journal
