Australia's east coast named as 'deforestation front' in WWF Living Planet report

Assessment underscores threat to koalas and other native species

" Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds

Australia's east coast has been compared to the Amazon as a "deforestation front" in a new global report by the World Wide Fund for Nature that underscores the threat to populations of koalas and other native species.

The Living Planet report, produced by WWF every second year for the past 20 years, says global populations of vertebrate species have declined 60% since 1970. But koala numbers have disappeared at a much faster rate - more than 20% a decade - to the extent they could disappear from the wild in New South Wales by 2050.