If the koalas don't have contiguous areas anymore, they cannot reproduce and it is estimated that they will be extinct by 2050. Before the Europeans colonised the continent, there were up to 10 million koalas, according to a 2011 report by the Australian Federal Government. Until the 1930s, the animals were hunted for their fur and to this day they are threatened by human population growth, urban development, forestry, mining and agriculture. In 2018, the Australian Koala Foundation estimated that there were less than 100,000, possibly only 43,000 in the wild. The bushfires of 2019-20 have further reduced population estimates enormously.
In July 2020, a report was presented that proposed steps and legislative changes to save the koala. Initially, the government in NSW was also in favour, then came the so-called Koala Wars - and, as a compromise, the bill (its revision) discussed on the 19th of November 2020 in the Senate was rejected. According to environmentalists, it would defeat the environmental and animal welfare goals in favour of the timber and paper industry.
