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  • 2 years ago
Researchers are urging Victoria to follow the lead of other states and list koalas as endangered, saying the numbers reported by the government are inflated. Deborah Tabart, chair of the Australian Koala Foundation, says there needs to be a Koala Protection Act nation-wide.

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00:00In 2011, in a Senate inquiry, they did miss out in a listing across the whole nation.
00:08Queensland, New South Wales and ACT got a vulnerable listing under the EPBC Act, but
00:15the Victorian government argued, please don't do this to us, we've got a logging industry,
00:19we don't want you to list it.
00:21And that was 2012.
00:22So 12 years later, I believe the plight of the koala is worse and it was upgraded to
00:29endangered.
00:30So in 12 years, things got worse and I just believe that every single koala in Australia
00:37needs protection and that's why I want a Koala Protection Act.
00:40The joke is when you have to get an animal listed, you actually have to count dead bodies.
00:44So over my 36-year career, all I've done is count dead bodies and now the CSIRO have got
00:50$10 million to count koalas and their final date is 2032.
00:57And I'm arguing, this is an endangered species, I don't believe our federal government is
01:01taking any of this seriously enough and I think we actually put out a thing today, if
01:07there's 400,000 koalas in Victoria, they're probably on the tram, so watch out.
01:11I'm just so tired of it.
01:14Counting instead of protecting the habitats, that's the key.
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