Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00555:body:0:p71
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00555
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 222991–225952

will be imperative to maintain populations:
       a) that have the potential to act as source populations to adjacent areas of suitable, or potentially suitable, habitat
       b) that exist in areas of climatically suitable refugia during periods of environmental stress including droughts, heatwaves, and long-term climate change
       c) that are genetically diverse
       d) or contain adaptive genes to current and future environmental stressors
       e) are geographical or environmental outliers within the species range.
2) Populations are also valued for social, cultural or economic reasons, and may or may not, overlap with populations listed above. Reasons may include, but not limited to:
       a) cultural and spiritual importance to Indigenous Australians
       b) the social value and enjoyment of having Koalas in your home neighbourhood
       c) the economic value brought to local business and tourism.

24. Habitat
Within the geographic range of the Koala (Figure 1), Koala habitat is defined by the availability and nutritional quality of food trees, presence of suitable resting trees and microclimates, age structure of vegetation, history, and impediments to dispersal. These differ regionally because they are strongly influenced by local climatic and landform attributes.
While precise requirements vary regionally and locally, Koala habitat can be considered in terms of the following multi-scale resource requirements in space and time:
    * the selection by Koalas of individual trees for food and shelter and other resources within their home range (sections 28 and 29)
    * patch size, form and context of home ranges within the landscape, including patches of forest, riparian, linear and roadside vegetation associations, open ground, corridors and scattered paddock trees used for breeding or dispersal (sections 27.3 and 28)
    * at larger scales, the regional landscape in which a metapopulation exists
    * the geographic range of the Koala (section 21).
The Koala is a specialist folivore that browses predominantly on the leaves of Eucalyptus, Corymbia and Lophostemon species (section 28) and resides in forests and woodlands ranging from tropical forests of far north coastal Queensland to the semi-arid woodlands of central Queensland and New South Wales, to coastal forests of eastern and southern Victoria (Martin and Handasyde 1999; Melzer et al. 2014; Moore and Foley 2000; Phillips 1990; Van Dyck and Strahan 2008). Across New South Wales and Queensland alone, it is associated with over 600 species of food and shelter tree (DES 2020b; DPIE 2019; Melzer et al. 2014; OEH 2018b; Sullivan et al. 2003), though in a given region or site only a few species might be used.
Non-food tree species are an essential resource to Koalas. Koalas use these shelter trees to thermoregulate, especially during hot days (Briscoe et al. 2015; Crowther et al. 2014; Ellis et al. 2009; Ellis et al. 2010a; Pfeiffer et al.