Logging plantations instead of native forests, banning single-use plastic bags and protecting koalas would improve the Far South Coast, according to NSW’s shadow environment minister. 

Labor MP Penny Sharpe, was visiting the Far South Coast this week to learn about issues affecting the region’s environment. 

“It’s very easy to sit in an office reading reports and think you know what’s happening,” she told Fairfax Media.

“But it’s only by coming and visiting a region and talking to locals that you learn what’s actually going on.” 

A major focus for her visit was koalas, once plentiful in the Eurobodalla, but now restricted to a pocket the shire’s south-west, near Cadgee, close to the boundary with the Bega Valley, and in a pocket in the Bermagui area.

Ms Sharpe said much more needed to be done in order to prevent the decline of their population.

She said logging of native forests definitely contributed to this decline as it removed their habitats. 

To help halt the loss, Ms Sharpe called for less logging of native forests and more plantations.

She also called for greater efforts to accurately assess how many koalas were left in the wild and she would be advocating for a commitment from the government to save the koalas in the South East.

She said forests were carbon sinks that helped combat climate change, so any changes to policy on logging should take this into account. 

“This part of the world is incredibly important and likes to talk about itself as a ‘wilderness coast’,” she said. 

“There needs to be better focus on preserving this wilderness.” 

Also, Ms Sharpe said Labor does not support biomass being used as a fuel.

“In my view, it is not a renewable energy source and it should not be used as one,” she said. 

Ms Sharpe said marine and plastic pollution would be curbed by banning single-use plastic bags.

She is considering moving a private members bill on that topic as well as pushing the government to do more on a container deposit scheme. 

“We know plastic pollution is emerging as a huge issue worldwide,” she said. 

Ms Sharpe said vessels such as the controversial trawler the Geelong Star, which returned to fishing this week in southern Eurobodalla waters after causing the deaths of several albatross, damaged the marine environment. 

“We cannot have sustainable fisheries if all we do is tear it up and pull it out,” Ms Sharpe said.