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Loggers more active inside koala park than out: claim

Tracey FerrierAAP
Areas set to be part of NSW's Great Koala National Park are being logged, conservation groups say. (Dean Lewins/AAP PHOTOS)
Camera IconAreas set to be part of NSW's Great Koala National Park are being logged, conservation groups say. (Dean Lewins/AAP PHOTOS) Credit: AAP

More than half of northern NSW's active logging operations are in forests earmarked for the government's koala refuge, a new analysis has found.

Conservation groups have been pleading with the Minns government to suspend logging in all areas being assessed for inclusion in the Great Koala National Park.

But that has not happened and apart from 106 identified koala hubs, it's business as usual for the government's Forestry Corporation.

On Friday, a coalition of conservation groups released an analysis showing 11 of 20 active logging operations currently going on in the north are in areas that could end up in the park.

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The analysis is based on the latest data published on the Forestry Corporation's planning portal, Forest Alliance NSW says.

NSW Greens MP Sue Higginson said the government was letting its logging business trash the areas endangered koalas needed to survive.

"Without immediate government intervention in this intensive logging of the Great Koala National Park, local extinction of koalas is a serious risk," she said.

"Premier Chris Minns must explain how this is anything other than a broken promise and political failure."

The Forestry Corporation said harvesting was not targeting any location and it was continuing standard operations.

"Planned operations in the indicative area to be assessed for the Great Koala National Park account for less than a third of the operations planned on the north coast in the coming year," it said in a statement.

"The volume of timber harvested from the indicative area to be assessed for the Great Koala National Park this year is well below the annual average harvested in the period 2012-2019.

"The number of crews working in the indicative area to be assessed for the GKNP forest areas has not increased."

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