Queensland Labor Premier Anna Bligh, in a letter published in the Courier Mail on 8 August, claimed concern at the decline in South East Queensland's koala population. However, it was her Government which only recently legislated, against community and local council objections, to fast-track the destruction of much of the remaining koala habitats in South East Queensland to make way for residential development.

What you can do: Email Premier Anna Bligh (premier [AT] ministerial qld gov au) and Deputy Premier Paul Lucas (deputypremier [AT] ministerial. qld. gov. au) to demand that they act now to end Queensland's economic dependency upon population growth, which threatens the koala and other native species, including the lungfish, with extinction.

See also: Locals join koala 'crisis' taskforce in the Bayside Bulletin of 7 Aug 08 including readers' comments.

Only days away before the calling of Local Government Elections the Redland Shire Council appear set to approve a massive increase in quarry trucks on local roads, posing a major threat to both people and wildlife.

Protesters outside Redland Shire Council unfurled 33 metere of signed petitions opposed to the proposed Superquarry which would destroy the local rainforest character of the Mount Cotton community on Wednesday 31 October.

"In a landlord-tenant arrangement, Council could effectively manage koala food trees and through a tenancy agreement, condition restraint of dogs which under Council's current Local Law only applies to properties larger than 2000sq m in koala management areas. "

... Golden Cockerel goes back to Council and asks for an extension to the working hours, 3am-10pm 19hrs a day they cry. They are concerned that the Company cannot make enough profit in 12hr days, six days a week. If the People want cheap Chickens, then that is the price Residents of Mt Cotton must pay for the benefit of us all, and Rightly So! I don't want to pay more for my chicken! Who does? ...

Deborah Tabart, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Koala Foundation has written to the Queensland Environment Minister (see below) asking the the status of Koalas in the South East Queensland bio-region be upgraded from their current listing of 'vulnerable' to 'endangered' as a result of the alarming recent increase of Koala deaths. Deborah Tabart wrote:

29th September is Save the Koala Day but what is there to celebrate about?

Since the beginning of the twentieth century we have placed koalas survival at risk. In Queensland there was several open hunting seasons, 1915, 1917 and 1919, with one million taken in 1919. In 1927 the Queensland government allowed 584,738 koalas to be taken for skins. By the 1930s the koala was extinct in South Australia and since then we have had tollways and now urban expansion, with the SEQ koala declining from Common to vulnerable.