In April 28, 2016 photo, a koala feeds at the Koala Hospital in Port Macquarie, Australia. (PETER PARKS / AFP)
CANBERRA – The Australian government has officially listed the iconic koala as an endangered species.
Sussan Ley, the Minister for the environment, on Friday announced that the government has accepted the Threatened Species Committee's recommendation that the status of koala populations in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales and Queensland be rated as endangered.
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It comes 10 years after koalas were first listed as vulnerable as a result of land clearing and bushfires significantly reducing the marsupials' habitat.
The koala has gone from no listing to now being declared endangered on the Australian east coast within a decade. That is a shockingly fast decline for one of the world's most iconic animals.
Dermot O'Gorman, WWF-Australia's chief executive
"Today I am increasing the protection for koalas in NSW, the ACT and Queensland, listing them as endangered rather than their previous designation of vulnerable," Ley said in a statement.
"The impact of prolonged drought, followed by the black summer bushfires, and the cumulative impacts of disease, urbanization and habitat loss over the past twenty years have led to the advice," said the statement.
"The new listing highlights the challenges the species is facing and ensures that all assessments under the act will be considered not only in terms of their local impacts, but with regard to the wider koala population," it added.
The announcement was made weeks after the government committed 50 million Australian dollars ($35.7 million) in funding to help the species.
Australia has lost about 30 percent of its koalas over the past three years, the Australian Koala Foundation said last year, with numbers estimated to have dropped to less than 58,000 from more than 80,000 in 2018 with the worst decline in New South Wales, where the numbers have dropped by 41 percent.
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A World Wide Fund for Nature study estimated bushfires in late 2019 and early 2020 had killed or injured more than 60,000 koalas, when flames burned more than 17 million hectares, an area nearly half the size of Germany.
But even before the fires, koala habitats had been in rapid decline due to land clearing for agriculture, urban development, mining and forestry. Koalas dwell mostly in eucalypt forests in eastern states and on the coastal fringes.
The Humane Society International, International Fund for Animal Welfare, and WWF-Australia nominated the species for an endangered listing.
"The koala has gone from no listing to now being declared endangered on the Australian east coast within a decade," Dermot O'Gorman, WWF-Australia's chief executive, told the Guardian Australia.
"That is a shockingly fast decline for one of the world's most iconic animals," he said. "There is still time to save this globally iconic species if the uplisting serves as a turning point in koala conservation. We need stronger laws and landholder incentives to protect their forest homes."