Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00555:body:0:p47
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00555
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 154607–157718

implementation and success of the plan will be undertaken ten years after the making of this plan as a foundation for the development of a revised ten-year plan. This review will consider, among other things, trends in the status of the listed Koala and its habitat, effectiveness of actions described in this plan, new research findings and emerging issues, policy context, management capability and resourcing, and partner satisfaction with governance and other matters. The review will be conducted independently with input from the Recovery Team and other partners involved in the plan's implementation.

PART IV
Threats and impacts

18. Introduction
The listed Koala is at most risk from climate change due to a shrinking climate envelope, along with wide-scale climate change effects that increase the frequency and intensity of drought and heatwaves, and increase the prevalence of weather conditions promoting bushfire (Adams-Hosking et al. 2011a; McAlpine et al. 2015; Runge et al. 2021b; TSSC 2021). Other major threats at a national scale are the clearing of habitat and the impact of disease (TSSC 2021).
The land use threats impacting the listed Koala include urbanisation; grazing and agricultural expansion; mining and energy extraction; and associated transport and service corridors infrastructure. The modification of natural processes that include vegetation change from native forestry and altered fire regimes (Figure 4).
These threats change ecological processes, impacting Koalas. These can be grouped into landscape processes including habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation and population effects (Figure 4). Disease can be thought of as both a naturally occurring direct threat in the case of epidemics, and an ecologically threatening process where land use change and climate change increase stress and disease in Koalas (Narayan and Williams 2016).
Changes in landscapes include changes in overall coverage of habitat, changes to patch size and number, changes to forest structure, loss of refugia, increased isolation and reduced connectivity, which collectively overall reduce habitat suitability and quality for Koala populations. These landscape effects in turn disrupt metapopulation processes at all scales via several pathways, such as:
    * increased and sustained patch isolation may lead to inbreeding, reducing genetic health of isolated populations, ultimately reducing fecundity
    * reduced habitat quality (e.g. loss of food and shelter trees, changes in hydrology, loss of suitable microhabitats, exposure to dogs and vehicles) can place increased physiological stress on individuals, increasing cortisol and other adverse inflammatory pathways in individuals which, in turn, increase susceptibility to disease and reduce fecundity
    * habitat loss directly reduces carrying capacity of a given landscape, making populations more susceptible to extinction (the small population paradigm, Caughley 1994)
    * loss of connectivity reduces natural movement such as the ability of individuals to disperse safely, therefore reducing gene flow and healthy levels