One man's campaign became a 478,000-hectare home for koalas

New South Wales has established the Great Koala National Park, a 478,000-hectare reserve between Kempsey and Grafton on the Mid North Coast that will protect more than 100 species of flora and fauna. It is the state's second-largest national park, arriving after more than a decade of campaigning and over 14 hours of parliamentary debate. The campaign started with conservationist Ashley Love, who began lobbying after residents told him the region's koalas were not as common as they once were. "It became too much to ignore," he said. Carbon credits made the finances work. The federal Clean Energy Regulator registered a project across more than 117,000 hectares of former logging forest, and by ending native logging there, the government can sell credits from land left standing. Protected forest, it turns out, earns more than felled timber. Love says he will keep pushing for the sections that didn't make it in.