Hi everyone, only three days until I leave for Copenhagen, and the simple message I want to take to the world is that the koala trees of Australia must be saved.

Last week at the APSA awards we had famous actors put their arms around a

beautiful eucalypt tree called Propinqua – it is a small fruited grey gum – a favourite for the koala, and it had a girth of 2.7 metres. A massive tree. I imagine it must be in excess of 300 years old. (See photos)

That tree has 289 tonnes of carbon in it and more amazingly it would take 579,000 new trees to replace the carbon right now it if was cut down. This is a staggering statistic. Imagine the number of trees you would need to replant the Amazon if it was cut down, or the Borneo forests, or the Congo forests.

In Copenhagen I think I am going to find that right now the world is not ready to protect existing forests. We still want to keep doing the same thing – cutting down forests and deluding ourselves that we can replace them – in a second.

The koala needs these trees to survive and with your help we can save them. More later, regards, Deborah