Hello Koala Lovers,

Today is Chinese New Year and it is the Year of the Tiger. I was born in the year of the Tiger and I am hoping I can gather all the strengths of that magnificent animal to help our beautiful Koalas.

For those of you in Australia, you will have seen an announcement from the Prime Minister about a $50m injection of funds to “help save the koala”.

My press release about this is HERE.

As you all know the AKF does not take any government funding which allows you, all of you who support our work to give us a voice that is free of politics and manipulation.

What I find frustrating about these announcements is that it is all in the future, “on the never-never” as we say in Australia which is about something that will never come.

That said, there will be some initiatives that will help, but by and large a lot of things announced like increased funding for hospitals would not be needed if the trees did not keep going down. We see nothing about that and we know why, because industry will not be curtailed.

The Koala Protection Act is also needed and our Prime Minister and whoever wins the election in the coming months will need to come to terms with that because unless you stop land clearing, we will never win. Oh, I wonder whether that announcement was because there is an election coming.

More soon

PS. Maps are the horse in front of the cart.

Sincerely,
Deborah