On Wednesday I am going down to Melbourne in readiness for the third and presumably final Senate Inquiry for the koalas, to be held on 1st August. It will be at Clifton’s Conference Centre, 440 Collins Street, Melbourne. If you would like to attend, we would love to know you are going (click here to let us know). I can assure you that not only will it help the koala, but I think you will find it almost like theatre. If it wasn’t so serious it could almost be amusing.

On Wednesday I am going down to Melbourne in readiness for the third and presumably final Senate Inquiry for the koalas, to be held on 1st August. It will be at Clifton’s Conference Centre, 440 Collins Street, Melbourne. If you would like to attend, we would love to know you are going (click here to let us know). I can assure you that not only will it help the koala, but I think you will find it almost like theatre. If it wasn’t so serious it could almost be amusing.

Prior to that I am going to visit the Otways. This is an area the Victorian Government now says is plagued by koalas, and I am sure it will be used by them as a foil for listing the koala nationally. I am starting to realize that the misconception of overpopulation has clouded the debate for so long that everyone takes this myth as fact and therefore no one looks at some of the bigger issues such as tree death, insects, possums or even changes in rainfall. I have seen trees that are dead like the ones in Victoria in the middle of Tasmania and there are no koalas there. I feel when the trees become defoliated the poor koala is the ‘last man standing’, and I suspect they are wondering “what in the heck went wrong!?”.

I will be tweeting on Twitter while in the forest, so you will be able to see what I see. If you haven’t linked onto our Twitter or Facebook this is a good time to do so. It will mean I can take you with me. It will be freezing in the forest, but I will be staying right in the middle so I think it will be beautiful to get out there in the dark and see what might be happening.

On Tuesday I am going to visit a logging company in Melbourne to see whether our Koala Habitat Atlas we prepared for them is being put into use. I have a feeling it is not, because I have read Senate submissions about this area and there is no mention of them, just the usual, same old same old story. 'Business has usual' has not protected the koala in the past and will, I am sure, fail in the future.

There will be some costs to a trip like this, so if you would like to donate to cover some of the costs, I would be very grateful (click here to make your donation).

Will write next week to give you my impressions on the latest Senate day.

Fond regards,
Deborah