Over the past two years, Nambucca Valley Landcare has been undertaking works on improving koala habitat across the Nambucca Valley. This project included planting koala habitat trees to provide habitat linkages across open paddocks, and improve habitat quality through intensive weed control, as well as some educational opportunities.
Threats to the local koala populations include loss of habitat through clearing (historic and current), lack of linkages between key habitat sites and weed infestations which restricts movement through the bush as well as car strikes, dog attacks, disease and bushfires.
This project planted 5,361 koala habitat plants across 4 properties to help form koala habitat corridors and to fill in gaps within the landscape. Two properties hosted five planting days, one of these supported ShoreTrack students to undertake an end of year assessment. An amazing 134 hours of volunteer time was given to planting and maintaining these trees.
In total, over 800 hours of weed control were undertaken over 8 properties, with lantana being the main focus of the work. These properties are located in areas of key koala habitat, from Valla Rural all the way to Burrapine and Bakers Creek with over 100 acres of weeds being treated over the duration of this project and 16 acres of high quality habitat fenced off from cattle access. Over the past 3 years, Nambucca Valley Landcare has improved the quality of koala habitat and areas of high biodiversity, through targeted weed control on approximately 150 hectares across 29 properties situated throughout the Nambucca Valley.
A wonderful workshop at Bollanolla Farm provided us with information from NSW National Parks and Wildlife about the current status of koalas and what we can really do to help support our local koala populations and inspiration from local bush regen stars, Hank and Sue, in eucalypt identification and weed control. Additionally, Nambucca Valley Landcare and North Coast visited two local primary schools and hosted a koala information stall at the 2023 NAIDOC week celebrations at Bowraville.
This project received grant funding from the Australian Government
