A funeral procession for koalas was organised on January 27 by Extinction Rebellion and other supporters of the endangered native.
The protesters are campaigning for developer giant Lendlease, the New South Wales government and Campbelltown City Council to pull back from plans to bulldoze one of the country’s healthiest koala populations for a housing estate.
Lendlease has begun clearing trees at Gilead, in the Macarthur region, after the council approved work on the first stage of its 1700-home Figtree Hill estate in December.
Residents and environmental experts say the housing development will destroy the habitat of one of the healthiest koala colonies in New South Wales.
The ABC said on January 14 that the master plan for stage one of the housing development did not include the critical requirement of 390 to 425-metre corridors which would allow koalas to travel across the landscape.
A parliamentary inquiry into the NSW koala population, released in June, found koalas were on track for extinction in the wild before 2050 with habitat loss the main driver of their demise.
lend_lease_and_koala_action_2_credit_rigmor_berg_smaller.jpg
