Why is it that conservation campaigns that follow the Save the [Insert Species Here] format feel like they fall short of the usual categories of political discussion?

These campaigns often get patronisingly dismissed as quaint, emotive, even childish. They populate the kids table of political discourse while the elder statesmen of economics and infrastructure debate high minded things in the parlour upstairs.

But I am here to convince you that the case of Save the Koalas deserves a spot in the primetime of political talk right now. That’s because the plight of the Koala in NSW is symbolic in so many ways.

Symbol of Sydney

Of course this is no ordinary species. It is that icon of Australian tourism dating back to Ken Done, a native wonder which to this day continues to be pushed onto all celebrities we seek to charm.

But long before it was a symbol of Sydney tourism it was a symbol of Australia’s environmental movement, probably the first ever.

In August 1927 the Queensland government, hoping to stimulate jobs in its failing rural economy, issued nearly 10 000 hunting licenses and declared open season on its Koala population.

What took place in the 31 days of August was a slaughter of as many as 800 000 Koalas. Their fur coats —which were often torn from the animal alive — fetched a handful of shillings and would be used to make coats or gloves.

The sheer lunacy of hunting a sedentary, defenceless creature did not bypass the public. The public uprising against the local government that followed is not only said to have helped topple the Labor government of the time, but likely represents Australia’s first conservation movement. World first breeding programs and koala sanctuaries followed as a result.

Protecting the koala shouldn’t be reduced to a coat of arms argument, it is in fact a more tragic symbol: a plight that moved people en masse nearly a century ago because they knew our actions were immoral. The koala is more so a symbol of a century of our struggle to reconcile with nature. A symbol that stands for all the species, past and present, that we have lost or are losing.

It’s not whether we will have a koala to present to royalty in the future, it’s whether we passed the test as custodians of the land.

Boy will we need to cram before the test if we expect to pass this one…

Symbol of Failure

Koala populations in NSW are estimated to have declined by as much as 1/3rd in the last two decades. The threats to the species are numerous and well known. Of the many risks humans are either the direct cause, or drivers of them.

The main cause though is less emotive: habitat loss. It is a slow and quiet suffocation. A squeezing out of sight and sound, taking place gradually over decades.

Under the coalition government though, this has not been so gradual. Since repealing the Native Vegetation Act in August 2017, land clearing in sample sites in northwest NSW tripled in one year according to studies conducted by the Nature Conservation Council.

The erosion of laws protecting native species, threatened species and national parks, has occurred as allowances, even incentives, for land clearing have expanded. One regulation alone is believed to expose 8 million hectares of bushland to clearing.

Despite this we — not just the governments of our time — are guilty of a belief that the loss of koalas is a tragic, but natural,event. Beyond our control, beyond our blame. It’s a repeat of the Menindee Lakes mentality: part biblical defeatism that ‘god works in mysterious ways’, part ‘such is the nature of modern times’, and all blame shifting.

Like the Murray Darling, this issue is symbolic of the coalition’s strange obsession with throwing money at treating the symptoms, while taking money from those that cause the disease.

Symbolic Gestures

Speaking truths here: the government has committed to investing $45 mil to a NSW Koala Strategy. They have adopted some of the key recommendationsraised by the Chief Scientist and Engineer. The strategy will see interesting and necessary research conducted into the population genetics of these animals. It will engage members of the community in much needed data gathering.

In many more regards though the Strategy is more expensive than needed, weaker than required and less direct than claimed.

Much like Tony Abbott’s Green Army, the Koala strategy creates all kinds of busyness around general vicinity of environmentalism. There will be new wildlife rescue hotlines, a network of wildlife hospitals and more training for veterinarians to caring for native animals.

It’s funding a cancer ward with the money you got going soft on the smoking industry.

All of the above — nice but not recommended in the review — treat the graphic tragedies: car accidents, dog attacks, stressed or stranded animals due to fires or heat. All symptoms. Let’s be kinder while we keep colonising their habitat.

Symbolic too is the proposed 24 000 hectares the government will purchase for reserves and parks. Not only is it a third of what the previous minister once promised but the 12 proposed sites so far leave a lot to be desired.

Thanks to a freedom of information request by the National Parks Association have access to data from NSW Office of Environment and Heritage that has mapped Koala hubs across NSW. This research identified 20 000 hectares with local populations. These new reserves only capture 180 hectares, less than 1%.

The buffer to this though is a reliance on translocation: moving a population from one habitat to another. It’s a flawed approach that demonstrates our ignorance of science and history.

Symbol of Arrogance

Stepping back to the 1920s: while Koala’s were getting shot in the millions in Queensland’s, a different disaster would strike the Koala population in Victoria.

The state’s Chief Inspector of Fisheries and Game, fearing the extinction of the species due to hunting and habitat loss, implored the government to move the Koalas into an isolated sanctuary on a remote island.

The idea of leaving them to their own desires on protected land was noble enough but that fact is it wasn’t their land, their habitat. As a result the koalas took to the trees extremely well. To the point that a few generations later the creatures had overpopulated the small island and stripped bare the treetops. Witnesses claim to have seen koalas starving to death clinging to the limbs of the dying gums.

The idea of translocation has that flavour of colonial good intentions that we as a country are all too familiar with. It stems from the same assumption of superior intellect that in the past justified babies being taken away from mothers, native people relocated to other lands, unruly women being lobotomised. That it was all for their own good.

Maybe it’s that the koala is slow, docile, easily dismissed as dimwitted, that we feel we can shunt it around and expect it to accept any damn tree. That because of it’s relatively small brain it doesn’t know any better. Translocation has a long history of failure. It causes incredible stress to individuals and disruption in populations.

We overlook the complexity of a koala’s ecology simply because the creature itself doesn’t look complex. We really know far less than we think we do — which to me was the resounding piece of feedback from the Chief scientist’s review. Are we willing to learn? Do we care to?

The Koala will always be a symbol to this country. Will it be a symbol of our successful cohabitation, custodianship and compassion? Or a symbol of our inability to halt the inertia of industry and ignorance?