Cowley Street koala habitat clearing stirs the community

Destruction of koala habitat at Cowley Street in Ormiston, to facilitate housing development, has outraged many members of the community.

Letters to Redlands2030 question the role of our various elected representatives, at each level of government, in failing to protect koalas and their habitat.

E-Petition 3408 to the Queensland Parliament calling for better koala habitat protection closes in a few days time, on 9th February 2021.

If you have something to say about Cowley Street habitat destruction or any thing else that may concern the Redlands community, email your letter to:

theeditor@Redlands2030.net

Loss of koala habitat at Cowley Street

As I write this, koalas are alive in Cowley Street watching their homes being destroyed. There is a shameful loophole in the legislation allowing mature Koala habitat located within this site to be cleared.

Habitat that under every local, state and federal law, policy and plan should have been protected. Habitat that had been mapped as high-value Koala habitat and an important wildlife corridor with mature habitat trees.

This loophole needs to be stopped immediately with amendments made to protect this and other such habitats. Action needs to be taken today.

Today, Monday 1st February at 7am the clearing continues. The only thing stopping the devastation are the koalas who have resided here for many years. If they decide to leave for any reason their trees will be gone. 

We saw less than a year ago, the world saw it too, the devastating fires that decimated almost a third of all Australian wildlife, an estimated 1 billion lives lost in an instant. Nature is now too fragile to lose any more lives.

We need to step up and we need to do it now before the only koalas we show our children will be cartoons.

“What we do now will shape the next few thousand years” says Sir David Attenborough.

Do we, do you want to be remembered as the generation who allowed this to continue?

Do we want to be the generation that kicked the can down the street and left the hard decisions and the devastation for our children? No, we don’t!

Our elected representatives are elected to govern as proud leaders of our communities. They are expected to act as leaders, and leaders are supposed to make the hard decisions. That’s what they are supposed to be good at.

The community are counting on them to do the right thing here at Cowley St Ormiston and stop the destruction of this environment. 

It’s ironic that the Redlands Council has the Koala’s face as its logo. Yet it allows the very thing that Redlands stands for to be selfishly destroyed for short term monetary gain of a landowner understood to live abroad, not even in the community.

We need our leaders to show some fortitude and gain the further respect of the community for now and into the future and put a stop to this environmental destruction.

3-53 Cowley St Ormiston QLD should be the bookend – with the government drawing a line in the sand as to where the environment matters. 

The elected councilors, parliamentarians and government ministers in office today may be remembered today as the people, the government who did the right thing.

Or they may be remembered as the ones who stood by and did nothing.

TP
Cleveland QLD.

More destruction of wildlife habitat in Redlands

I am writing to you with grave concerns for the ongoing protection of habitat and wildlife in Redland City, in particular, 3-53 Cowley Street Ormiston Qld.  

The Cowley Street development site has had an outpouring of angst from a devastated community. 

The Community has been shocked at the lack of opportunity for consultation and the loopholes in local, state and federal levels of protection that are allowing the clearing of 100 year old High Quality Habitat Trees and Koala Habitat at this site.  

I implore you, your colleagues and the entire community to band together to save this site.  

There are still Koala’s present on site and remaining high value Koala/Wildlife Habitat at both the Eastern and Western Ends of the site and a Corridor running down the Northern boundary of the site. 

As long as the Koalas remain on site, they and the few trees near them remain protected, as soon as they move, the trees are allowed to be cleared. 

This site could be a centrepiece in enhancing a functioning wildlife corridor and linking fragmented patches of Habitat host to a number of listed species including the vulnerable Koala. It could be incorporated into the park with community planting to build the reach of this corridor.  

Now is not the time to lay blame or finger point. Amendments need to be made immediately to protect our natural landscape and vulnerable species. There is a brief opportunity to take action to save a highly valuable ecological and community prized site.  

Australia has a concerning record of deforestation GLOBALLY, clearing forest at a faster rate than some third world countries such as the Congo.  

The Habitat that remains on this site is not just a drop in the ocean, we need all levels of governance to show they are serious about protecting truly valuable habitat, every tree matters. 

In Queensland alone, we have had recent clearing rates of 392 000 Hectares of Forest Annually  (2017-2018), with a thousand plant and animal species at risk of extinction, is this the legacy and future we wish for our shire, state, country and our children.  

Australia has already cleared nearly half of its forests in the last 200 years alone. This has to stop. Please, we have to make a change now and 3-54 Cowley street is an opportunity to enact this change.  

Australia is the proud home of unique and globally cherished wildlife and natural landscapes, which were devastated in the most recent fires, every one of us, from community to federal government, is accountable for its ongoing protection.  

Please see these photos of 3-54 Cowley Street taken yesterday 27/1/2021, with neighbourhood members watching with tears in their eyes and children heard calling out to workers to “stop hurting my friends”.  

AC
Ormiston

Cowley Street shows the Council failing again

The demise of the koala habitat in Cowley Street is a clear failure of planning and policy in the Redland city Council. The likelihood of the land being developed was obvious, what did successive Councils do about it …nothing.

The Redland City Plan has failed in so many places, such as:

• Building a Maccas at Birkdale
• Demolition of the historic house at Wellington Point
• Mega development at Queen Street in lieu of “environmental protection”

Of course individual councillors claim “there is nothing we could do.

What they should have done is to make sure the City Plan was fit for purpose…they chose to ignore community comments and concerns.

It’s another sad sad day in Redlands.

ND
Cleveland

Koala habitat protection petition

E-Petition 3408 calling for better koala habitat protection can be signed by any Queensland resident. This on-line petition closes on 9 February 2021.

More Letters To Redlands2030

Holey Moley, Toondah Spin And Koala Fence

Politicians: not listening, not caring

Holey Moley, Corporate Plan Gobbledegook And Toondah

Redlands2030 – 3 February 2021