Would you like to get together as a group
and have a bit of a look around
for some koalas?
Yeah!!
They're literally a needle in a haystack,
our koalas.
This looks like a potential
koala scat to me!
So I'm just gonna...
crush that up --
even though that's super old,
uh, that does have a slight
eucalyptus-y sort of smell.
Koalas have been considered
functionally extinct on the NSW
Central Coast for more than a decade.
But, following the summer's fires,
locals say they've been seen,
having fled their fire-ravaged homes
to seek refuge further east.
So this is where the fires joined forces.
Our worst nightmare became a reality.
It started to engulf
the Central Coast.
Millions of hectares of land
have been destroyed in Australia.
Tens of thousands of koalas
they are saying have been burnt alive
in these fires.
Before the bushfires,
we were very worried
about the ongoing survival of koalas.
Now, post-bushfires,
things are looking extremely uncertain
for the future of koalas in NSW.
Koala tree,
Koala tree.
So the most recent koala sighting
we got was at Cedar Brush Creek,
near Yarramalong, and that was taken
last December, around Christmas time.
Because koalas are in such a
critically dangerous position,
we need to do everything we can to
protect the habitat, and that includes
stopping the Wallarah 2 coal mine.
Wallarah 2 is a proposed
underground coal mine, five kilometres
outside the town of Wyong.
The Wallarah 2 Coal Project is
owned by Korean company KORES,
and plans to extract 5 million tonnes of
export coal from the ground each year,
over a 28-year lifespan.
The project was approved by the
Morrison government in 2019,
and construction could begin as early
as next year.
An ecology report from 2016
found more than 40 hectares of potential
koala habitat will be cleared
during construction of the mine.
Previous studies found a further
2000 hectares could be compromised
if the ground above the mine
starts to sink.
Cate Faehrmann is chair of the
NSW Koala Inquiry,
an investigation looking at threats
to the marsupials' survival.
If the government is serious
about stopping koalas becoming extinct,
it has to stop their habitat being cleared.
Right now because of the fires,
and the impact of the fires,
that means looking back at
current approvals and just saying
'sorry, we have to reassess everything'.
Wow, look at the scratches on this!
Wow.
We're just all looking to maybe
find scratches, and find a koala.
Because...
we heard about the bushfires and it's
endangering koalas, so if we can
find one, we might be able to help them.
A lot of koalas would be coming out
of the bushfires into this area, so
we want to make sure that we can
actually give them a home
that they deserve,
rather than destroy their land.
We're only, um,
between seven and nine kilometres
from the actual main area
where the Wallarah 2 coal mine starts.
And here we are, with what looks
very much like koala scratches.
While Jake and his followers search for
proof of koalas,
others in the community say
with unemployment on the rise,
the town of Wyong and the wider
Central Coast can't afford for the mine
to be scrapped.
The industry locally is
um, slowing down.
Due to, obviously, the mines in the area
running out of resources.
We definitely need to have
a local mine start fresh.
The onflow is the local builder
who gets a house built from a fellow
who's just got a job at the local mine.
The local takeaway that's feeding
all the guys while they're building
the place.
Aaron Suckling is already benefiting
from the mine.
His in-school apprenticeship
was sponsored by Wallarah 2.
My dad was a mechanic,
and he passed away when I was
very young, sadly,
of lung cancer.
I wanted to just keep it in the family,
be a mechanic, and they
hit me up and said Wallarah Coal
want to help you out and support
your apprenticeship.
The mine is promising to generate
more than 1000 jobs during construction.
300 mine workers will have jobs
once coal extraction starts.
All the young kids, like my age,
they'd love to get in there and have a go.
It's far more important to have a mine
here than to...
...to worry about the impact
that isn't actually there.
There's environmental people involved
in mines that have more control
over the sustainability of the mine
than anyone else,
and that's their job, is to make sure
that what's on the surface is protected.
Ultimately it's probably going to be
a plus for the koalas.
I don't think a 28-year cycle
longwall coal mine is going to benefit
the local flora and fauna in this area,
nor do I believe it will the community.
I mean, if we're talking about a few
hundred jobs, why doesn't council,
the state government,
the federal government,
get behind, I don't know, opening
a new Bunnings or something
like that, that employs a lot of
different people?
The Wallarah 2 project declined
our request for interview.
The Central Coast Council
has announced it will conduct
a large-scale koala survey
over the coming months.
Jake's hopeful its findings will be the
evidence he needs to put a stop
to the mine before it's too late.
We're certainly not winning the fight
against Wallarah 2 on paper,
it looks like we're losing the battle.
But we refuse to give up,
and we're going to keep drawing
more and more people in the
community, and hopefully inspire
other people around Australia to
step up and take responsibility for
the area that they're privileged
enough to live in.