Thousands of koalas are living in a proposed NSW national park, giving fresh hope for the long-term survival of the species.
Detailed analysis of the 176,000-ha Great Koala National Park on the NSW's mid north coast found an estimated 12,111 koalas, as the government works on balancing the interests of animals and the logging industry.
That's prompted conservation groups to urge the government suspend all logging inside the park boundaries until an assessment process is finalised, or risk setting the species on course for extinction.
At least 5000 koalas were killed in the 2020 Black Summer bushfires and a subsequent parliamentary inquiry found they would be extinct by 2050 without urgent government intervention to stop habitat loss.
Some logging has already been halted throughout the new park with 106 koala hubs set up.
But Nature Conservation Council NSW chief executive Jacqui Mumford said the key habitat couldn’t afford “another year of destruction” through the assessment process.
“As we speak, vast swathes of the proposed park are being logged and destroyed at the exact same time that it is being assessed for protection. It doesn’t make sense,” she told AAP.
“If the government is serious about ensuring koalas exist in the wild beyond 2050 then a moratorium on logging in the proposed Great Koala National Park, where a fifth of the state’s koalas live, is an urgent necessity.”
Earlier this year, the Environment Department estimated the combined koala population in NSW, Queensland and the ACT was between 95,000 and 238,000.
But some other groups think it would be far less, including the Australian Koala Foundation, which put the nation's total population at around 60,000.
NSW Premier Chris Minns announced the $80 million Great Koala National Park in the lead-up to his 2023 election win.
The assessment process continued this week with meetings of local government, conservation groups, tourism organisations, industry figures and union members.
An Aboriginal Advisory Panel has also met with a report on cultural values being prepared.
