Each year we celebrate National Eucalyptus Day on the 23rd of March. Now in its eleventh year, it’s important to us to raise awareness about Eucalypts – why we need and love them.

As part of our celebration we focused some of our attention this month on the amazing work our volunteers do in making sure that the koalas in our Koala Hospital and Care Centre have enough leaf. If you are interested in learning more about our Leaf Harvesting Team please have a read here.

Last month we highlighted our amazing Plantation Maintenance Team. Friends of the Koala manage seven Eucalypt Plantations and we have a number of other locations we source fresh leaf from. Read more about the Plantation Maintenance Team here.

Koala Habitat

Eucalypts are home, shelter and food to many forest-dwelling species of flora and fauna including our beloved koalas. The Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry ABARES state that: ‘The Eucalyptus forest type is by far the most common forest type in Australia covering 101 million hectares, which is 77% of Australia’s total native forest area.‘

Our region – The Northern Rivers encompasses ten of the State’s 50 Areas of Regional Koala Significance (ARKS). It remains a nationally significant stronghold for the survival of koalas. Habitat restoration is a huge part of our work and of course where it all began almost four decades ago. These projects are possible with funding from a wide range of partners and donors.

One of our aims is to partner with local landholders for tree-planting activities. The goal is to link up the existing patches of remnant koala habitat to create a more continuous corridor of food and shelter. To date, we have:

• distributed 812,000 koala food trees
• restored 59ha+ of habitat
• ca 5,000 local landholders partnerships

Please read more about our Koala Habitat Restoration and Protection work here and you might like to adopt a tree (or more) for just $5.

East Coraki

You might remember our Hanging out at East Coraki: Koalas thriving in an agricultural landscape project that began with a community planting to support koalas in the area. Twenty five people came from near and far planting, five hundred and thirty five trees to support koalas in this agricultural landscape – read more about our first planting day here.

We are excited to show you how much our trees, only planted last year in August and September, have grown. They have received the best care from our landholders.

We love visiting our little forests!!! All of this is possible thanks to funding from the Australian Government for our project “Hanging out at East Coraki”.

On March 2 we had our first community planting day on Swan Bay Road in East Coraki as part of our WWF-Australia funded “Koala Corridor Creation” – project. Thanks to a resilient crowd of volunteers, 600 trees went into the ground on the hottest day of the week! It was a tough morning for everyone, but seeing the result was extremely rewarding.

“Les”, one of the resident koalas and a trauma survivor will have many more trees to browse from and shelter in the not too distant future.”

Support Koala Habitat Restoration and join our Community Planting Day

If you enjoy being outdoors and would like to help us help koalas…join us for our next community planting day in East Coraki. We are creating stepping stones and connect habitat for our East Coraki koalas to move safely through an agricultural landscape. This planting is part of a project funded by WWF Australia.

Community Plant Nursery

We operate our own Community Native Plant Nursery onsite and currently have five nursery sites in Lismore and surrounding areas.

We issue koala food trees for $1 each to landholders and our team is available by appointment to provide advice on plant selection, planting, and care. Whether you’re a seasoned gardener or are just starting out, we would love to help you. Read more about our Native Plant Nursery.

Last year, in celebration of National Eucalyptus Day, we spoke more about the individual types of Eucalypts or gumtrees as they are fondly known, where they originated and what part they play in Aboriginal life. We also spoke about what Eucalypts are favoured by koalas as well as shared some fun Eucalypt facts. Revisit National Eucalyptus Day 2023.