A spokesperson for NSW Forestry Corporation responded to the report released by the North Coast Environment Council as follows:
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Timber harvesting from regrowth native forests has been ongoing for the past 100 years.
More than 80 per cent of the public forested land in NSW is already protected in reserve areas and we harvest less than one per cent of the area of forest available for timber production each year.
Forestry Corporation operates in accordance with NSW’s strict native forest regulations and always maintains large areas of koala habitat in corridors throughout the forest.
In every forest that is harvested, on average around 40 per cent of the harvest area is set aside for conservation. Further, trees are retained right across harvested areas to provide seed and ongoing habitat for threatened species as well as timber for future generations.
The harvested areas of forest regenerate as native forests and through sustainable management, will provide timber into the future.
Our qualified and experienced ecologists and forest technicians conduct extensive surveys is every hectare of every harvest area to specifically search for and protect threatened species, including koalas.
These surveys are carried out in line with strict rules developed by expert scientific panels and we know from years of data that we have robust populations of koalas and other threatened species throughout productive State forests.
Recently released research from Northern NSW has backed our survey observations up by demonstrating that there are large areas of koala habitat in National Parks, State Forests and private lands. Importantly koalas have been recorded living in and around areas of state forest where harvesting has occurred both recently and historically.