The Australian Koala Foundation is totally opposed to koala habitat “offsets”. So, what is an environmental offset? Firstly, it was a notion of some person in a department somewhere that said “you know if we recommend offset industry can just knock everything down”. Great idea said industry and government alike (particularly when a monetary donation is involved) . Secondly, they then asked scientists within the department to validate the concept with either a scientific paper or a policy.
Say, a project needs to remove 23,000 Koala trees(not sure how they count them) then the Government proposes industry has to plant new 5 new trees for every tree lost. 115,000 new trees - wow. An additional 92,000 trees for Koalas to call home; - wow.
So who plants them? Who waters them? Who counts that they have been planted? What if only 25,000 new trees were planted?
What if the trees die (50% of most plantings die in most areas of Australia)?
What if the area is miles away from the Koalas home?
Who will tell the Koala to wait for 10-20 years for those trees to become a feed tree?
What does the Koala do in the meantime?
Thirdly, NONSENSE.
