Interim Koala Referral Advice for Proponents

Crazily, the Federal Government is actually giving developers self-regulation regarding declaring whether there are 'significant' populations of koalas where they intend clearing and building. This is the height of absurdity. Alex Harris of KoalaTracker has a method for documenting koala activities but he needs your help to keep it up. We need this kind of evidence to challenge developers' lies about flora and fauna on the land they clear. KoalaTracker builds on every new sighting report. The bad new government guidelines underscore the need for KoalaTracker and local involvement. We need koala location intelligence. Article by Alex Harris

I have been ill for much of the last few months which left me unable to work and a lot has happened in the interim. Will send more regular and shorter updates in the future. FYI the drugs have kicked in and I'm told I'll live.

I must admit to losing heart at times. Recent events, however, prove unequivocally the value of KoalaTracker. We must prevail. There is too much at stake to give up now. More on that and changes to KoalaTracker below.

In November I spoke at the Spatial@Gov conference in Canberra on crowdsourcing for public policy, presenting KoalaTracker as a case study, which led to my also presenting at Georable Brisbane. You’ll be pleased to know geographic experts are impressed with the concept and execution of KoalaTracker.

Overwhelmed with the workload in November, I called for volunteers to help with data entry from rescue groups too busy to enter it themselves, and got three. Thank you to members Peter Levy, Judi Allen and Lyn Prowse-Bishop, who have been diligently working through spreadsheets supplied by Fauna Rescue South Australia (FSA in the database). Your contribution has been, and continues to be of enormous value.

More volunteers needed to share the load so no one burns out. All you need is a computer and an internet connection. Let me know if you can give a couple of hours a month.

Also in November, I ran a brief fundraising campaign on the community crowdfunding site Indiegogo, to help with the costs of maintaining KoalaTracker. Sadly, it was not the success I’d hoped. But my sincere thanks go to members Greg Johnstone, Greg Brinkley and Carol Wenz (USA) for their kind support.

Please take the time to continue with the rest of this email. Recording the location of alive, dead and injured koalas has never been more important, and below I outline why.

IN MEMORIAM

My thoughts and prayers are with all those who have suffered a shocking first month of 2013. From extraordinary fire events through record-breaking floods, the heart break of such incredible losses in homes, in stock and crops, in livelihoods and lives across Australia, touches us all.

The number of wildlife lost will never be known. The television cameras may have been in western New South Wales and Tasmania, but the fires in Victoria, Queensland and South Australia also burned through tens of thousands of hectares of wildlife habitat. The intensity, speed and height of the flames suggests potentially extreme loss of life in our fragile koala populations, incapable as they are of outrunning the flying infernos witnessed this summer. So too wallaby species, quolls, gliders and other marsupials and reptiles. Those that are left will struggle to find food in burnt out areas.

All koala populations, even those once thought healthy are now at risk. The challenge to save the koala has never been greater. But we can’t save them if we don’t know where they live. This is not about trees. It's about the koala.

URGENT ACTION REQUIRED

With koalas being officially listed as vulnerable in Queensland, New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory in April last year, one could be forgiven for thinking all is not lost. But the koala remains under threat from impacts that we could control, and for the most part don’t. The threats include loss of habitat (development, farming, mines, fires), isolation of colonies that results in limited gene pools and vulnerability to disease, high volumes of car strikes and domestic dog attacks, uncoordinated and outdated public policy.

Policy not informed by the location of koalas, but the satellite mapping of pixel colours to define koala habitat; policy that sees an overwhelming number of koalas euthanised; policy that enables mining and logging of ‘protected’ primordial and irreplaceable koala forest, and official guidelines that will put the responsibility for the assessment of potential impact on koala populations of a development, under the new federal protection laws, in the hands of developers.

Here is the extent of that federal protection:

The federal Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities is developing guidelines to assist businesses to clarify whether a development will need federal environment approval. The current document (Interim Koala Referral Advice for Proponents) is available here (http://www.environment.gov.au/epbc/guidelines-policies.html#species). Read it and weep.

Yep, that’s right. You decide whether federal environmental approval of your project is required. If you don’t find any koalas, or fail to find a population of importance (whatever that means), your project will not be subject to federal scrutiny under federal environmental legislation.

Do we need to call Tom Waterhouse for the odds on developers quietly removing, or flat out denying the existence of koalas on their land? It has happened before. It will again. Or mining companies? Or… And who can challenge them without evidence to suggest otherwise?

The habitat maps relied upon for planning and development approvals are wrong. I proved that at Spatial@Gov, and KoalaTracker continues to build upon that proof with every new sighting report. These new guidelines underscore the need for KoalaTracker and your involvement. We need koala location intelligence. We cannot afford to become complacent.

You can do something, and you must. You have at your disposal a sophisticated mapping tool that puts koala location intelligence on the public record. KoalaTracker is free for you to use; governments, developers and media too. They are logging on regularly. Are you?

If you are refusing to report because you think you are protecting a hidden, ‘safe’ koala colony, think again, because you could be putting those koalas at risk. With these new guidelines, those populations could be annihilated and there is nothing we will be able to do, because the developers and governments will rightly say, we didn’t know there were any koalas there.

If as a rescue group you are refusing to report because you already file your data with a state government agency and this seems like a duplication, I can assure you it is not. Your entry to KoalaTracker is not filed away, it is free for anyone to view on a map, to search in the database. KoalaTracker has been instrumental in councils taking effective risk mitigation.

Please put your rescues on the public record at KoalaTracker. It is a free national resource. Sign your reports with the initials of your group, like FSA, SCKWR, SRWR do. This allows a search of the database on your rescue group’s initials, adding value to your local advocacy and fundraising efforts.

Let us help you get that information on the map. If you have a spreadsheet of rescues or sighting reports with geocodes or accurate address, situation and outcome details, I and our volunteers can enter that to catch you up, with the expectation that you would undertake individual reports from herein. Please contact me directly.

NEW DATA

Watching sighting reports come in, I am often struck by the variations in diet recorded by members observing koalas in the wild - including koalas eating macadamia, camphor laurel and olive leaves. The response to this discussion in an earlier email brought even more information. KoalaTracker member Charlie Lewis has reported and photographed koalas eating termites.

It appears to be mothers with back babies. The photos show the mother teaching and encouraging her young to eat out of the nest. (Search the database on keyword, termite, to see for yourself.) This behaviour appears to be similar to the mother-baby bark eating on the Monaro Tableland referenced in an earlier email.

It is possible this is more widespread, but has not necessarily been observed. So, if you have a tree termite nest and koala visitors, keep a watch for their behaviour around that nest and report it on KoalaTracker.com.au.

Do not doubt the value of citizen science. Like the landowners in Monaro, you are best placed to make observations of koalas in the wild. As we become more aware of koalas in our midst, observing their behaviour more than just noticing their presence, is our next frontier. You may find yourself adding valuable new data to our knowledge of koalas.

CHANGES TO REPORTING MAP

Over several days this month I conquered the rewriting of the geolocation code (Google’s V3 API). As I am not a spatial specialist, nor coder, it took more time and effort than it might otherwise have, but if you have experienced Google errors previously
you should be pleased with the result.

This represents the biggest change to KoalaTracker since its modest launch in February 2010. It reduces the mapping process to three simple steps. Your search for an address will throw up address records to choose from, eliminating errors. You can now also search on landmarks, such as national parks, pubs, sporting clubs and public buildings (very cool). The map zooms right in automatically, and to plot the koala you now drag the marker to the exact location, which automatically feeds geocodes through to the form, and this works on the computer, iPad and other tablets. So, no excuses now…see the new mapping tool and form on the Report a Sighting page in the member zone on KoalaTracker.

Our library (the Read News section), for obvious reasons, has fallen by the wayside, with no additions since June, despite a continuing high volume of media on koala issues. To this end, if you would like KoalaTracker to maintain this national library of media clippings on koalas, I need one or more volunteers to take on this ‘job’ as their own. Please let me know if you find the library of value, and if you have time and interest in sourcing and adding media clips to it.

I NEED YOUR HELP

I find it particularly hard to ask for help, but need now outstrips pride.

This is not a charitable organisation with tax deductibility status; it does not qualify for community grants; it is unsupported by corporations and government. KoalaTracker is a free community service, created, maintained and entirely self-funded for three years. I give everything I’ve got and I do it for free. Having been without income for six months now (self-employment isn't what it's cracked up to be) the circumstances can only be described as dire. Please consider a donation, however small. All donations gratefully received. See the Support page for details.

Alternatively, please send me work. Or a job! I am a digital savvy professional freelance writer, with a past in public relations and media.

UNTIL NEXT TIME

Please tell your friends about KoalaTracker. Tell your friends in rural areas; tell friends in New South Wales, in western Sydney and western Queensland, the Eyre and Mornington Peninsulas. We know there are koalas there, we are just not yet getting reports. Keep an eye out on your morning walk, gardening or landcare activities. Check the KoalaTracker blog for the article on how to find them in the wild, and start watching for and reporting koalas in your area.

As always, every sighting counts.

Alex Harris
alex[AT]koalatracker.com.au
0412 635 274