Koalas,
an iconic symbol of Australia, face extinction as rapid urbanization
along the eastern seaboard destroys their fragile habitat, environmental
activists have warned.

The Australian Koala Foundation has written to the government urging
it to declare the koala a vulnerable species
after a survey of 1,000 koala habitats found 30 percent no longer had a
koala in them and 60 percent had suffered widespread destruction.

"I truly believe that in my lifetime the koala will become
extinct unless we do something," Deborah Tabarat, executive
director of the foundation, told reporters.

Koalas are protected by law but the eucalyptus
trees they call home and which provide their only source of food
are not.

There are about 100,000 koalas in Australia, down from an estimated 7
million to 10 million at the time of white settlement in 1788. In the
1920s 3 million koalas were shot for their fur.

Tabarat said the major problem facing koalas was that the majority of
Australia's 20 million people and the majority of the koala population
both call Australia's eastern states home.

She said that with 80 percent of Australia's east coast temperate
forests destroyed and continued rapid
urbanization, koalas along the eastern seaboard could be extinct in 15
years.

"This animal is in serious trouble," said Tabarat.

"In 15 years you will not see a koala west of the divide,"
she said, referring to the Great Australian Divide, mountains that
divide east coast Australia from its rural outback.

Wild koalas only exist in four of Australia's six states: Queensland,
New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.

The marsupial has no natural predator
but has been in decline for decades due to urban sprawl and from car
accidents and dog attacks.

More than 4,000 koalas are killed each year by dogs and cars, said
the foundation on its Web site.

The most robust koala population on the Australian mainland exists in
southeast Queensland and numbers about 10,000, but it too faces
extinction in 15 years, said Tabarat.

Southeast Queensland is experiencing the most rapid population growth
of any part of Australia. Over the past eight years 16,000 koalas in the
area arrived dead or fatally injured in hospitals after accidents with
cars or dog attacks and another 10,000 injured koalas probably died in
the bush, said Tabarat.