A new koala policy, released last week for public comment, says steps should be taken to increase koala habitat, improve vegetation corridors and educate the public in a bid to stop the downward spiral by 2011.

Early estimates suggest the strategy will cost roughly $5.2 million to implement.

Environmental Protection Agency figures suggest the dwindling koala population has decreased to 4611 animals in the Koala Coast, a fall of 26 per cent in the past eight years.

But the council believes the Koala Coast – an area of core koala habitat on the mainland that stretches across the Redlands, Logan and Brisbane – will be home to more than 5000 koalas by 2014 if the right steps are taken.

The draft koala policy, developed in the wake of a two-day koala summit at Alexandra Hills early this month, acknowledges that the local koala population is endangered.

It lists urbanisation effects, road and rail koala deaths, dog attacks, safeguarding of koala habitat and allowing better koala movement in the suburbs as key issues to be addressed.

The document says the Redlands should become a “koala-active community” and research funding should be stepped up.

A lengthy action plan – including compulsory overnight denning or restraint of all dogs throughout the Redlands – accompanies the plan (see list below).

Division 10 Councillor Helen Murray said many of the actions should have been taken years ago and the community must be educated about the dwindling koala numbers.

“It’s got to be like the water crisis – the koala crisis,” she said at Wednesday’s planning and policy meeting.

Mayor Don Seccombe said he was comfortable with the direction of the policy and called for one million trees to be planted in the Redlands “over a short period” to help boost koala habitat.

But Wildlife Preservation Society spokesman Simon Baltais said the new koala policy would not halt urban expansion, which was the number one reason for the demise of koalas.