Dean Kearney

…As senior manager at the Forestry Corporation, Mr Dean Kearney manages logging and timber harvesting for native forests and eucalyptus plantations across New South Wales. The organisation has come under criticism from former Labor environment minister Bob Debus and environmental groups who say it’s destroying koala habitats and leaving forests “smashed to the ground.” “Koala populations have plummeted by 50 per cent on the north coast in the past 20 years due to under-regulated logging,” Susie North from the North Coast Environment Council said. Mr Kearney strongly disagrees. “We’ve got the balance right between protecting koalas and harvesting timber,” he said.