NSW Creates Great Koala National Park After Long Fight

New South Wales has turned a long campaign into law. Parliament passed legislation creating the Great Koala National Park, adding a large stretch of state forest and other Crown land to the national park estate on the Mid North Coast. The addition covers more than 178,000 hectares, land that had been open to logging as state forest. For the people who spent years pushing for the park, the vote closed a fight for the Great Koala National Park that ran for more than a decade. For the forests themselves, it changes who decides what happens next.

Joined to parks that already existed nearby, the protected area now spans more than 475,000 hectares. According to the NSW Government, the added forest is home to around 12,000 koalas and about 36,000 greater gliders, along with more than 100 other threatened species. That scale is the point of the Great Koala National Park design. Koalas do not live in isolated patches, and a connected stretch of forest gives them room to feed, breed and move as conditions change. Conservation groups describe the result as one of the largest protected areas in the state, and a refuge built at the scale the animals actually use.

How the park came to be law

The bill was introduced earlier in October and passed after a long debate that ran late into the night. It drew support from the Liberal Party, the Greens and the Animal Justice Party, while the Nationals and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party opposed it, citing concerns about the timber industry, fire risk and the carbon credit scheme. The Greens secured ten amendments in the lower house, including an expansion of Bongil Bongil National Park, a new nature reserve at Orara East State Forest, and limits on motor racing in five regional parks. Clancy Barnard, a senior forest campaigner with the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, said the park came out larger than first promised after years of pressure to shrink it.

The law also cuts the amount of timber taken from native forests in the state. The Nature Conservation Council puts the reduction at about one fifth of the native forest harvest, with safeguards meant to stop logging from simply moving elsewhere. The Wilderness Society welcomed the win but pointed to gaps, saying important habitat at Pine Creek and Tucker's Nob was left outside the park boundary and remains open to logging. That dispute is now the next front in a campaign that spent years focused on the Great Koala National Park.

What the law changes on the ground

Moving land from state forest into the national park estate matters because it is the strongest form of protection the state can give. Logging stops on the added land, and management passes to the parks system rather than the forestry agency. The passage of the legislation, combined with approval of the park's carbon project by the Clean Energy Regulator, clears the final hurdles to establishing the Great Koala National Park, according to the NSW Government. Credits from that carbon project cannot be sold to coal and gas projects, a condition conservation groups had pressed for.

The change also reaches the people who worked in and around those forests. The NSW Government is supporting affected workers, businesses and communities with redundancy payments, retraining, upskilling and other financial assistance, and eligible Forestry Corporation workers have a pathway into roles with national parks. WWF-Australia welcomed support for new Aboriginal ranger positions to help manage the park and care for Country, and urged the government to keep talking with the Gumbaynggirr and Dunghutti communities about the handback of public native forests. Visitors will still be able to use parts of the Great Koala National Park for camping, canoeing, mountain bike riding and bushwalking.

What happens before the gates open

The Great Koala National Park is on track to open before the end of the year, according to the NSW Government, though it has not commenced yet. Environment Minister Penny Sharpe called the passage a defining moment for conservation in the state and said the government had cleared the final hurdles to delivering its biggest environmental commitment. Minister for Small Business and the North Coast Janelle Saffin said the park should draw visitors from around the world and bring fresh business to town centres along the coast.

Whether the reserve settles the wider argument over native forest logging is another question. The Wilderness Society says the end of native forest logging in the state is now in sight, and has pressed Premier Chris Minns to commit to a fast and fair transition before the next election. For now, the map has changed: a stretch of forest bound for the Great Koala National Park that spent years at the centre of protests, court fights and election promises is now inside a national park. The full story, including the NSW Government announcement and WWF-Australia's response, is set out in the NSW Government's release and WWF-Australia's statement.