Hello Koala Lovers,
Welcome to Save the Koala Month and I am very excited to announce a new initiative entitled the ‘Koala Kiss Project’ which is our plan to understand how much adjoining habitat there is from Cairns down to Melbourne.
Our idea will ultimately lead to a ‘Great Koala Trail’, approximately 2,543kms through prime Koala habitat that can be created into an uninterrupted conservation corridor by connecting key ‘kiss points’.
Imagine the possibility!
Over 23 years AKF has invested millions of dollars and the most brilliant scientific minds in developing the Koala Habitat Atlas – a first-of-its-kind scientific achievement that maps the entire habitat range of a single species. Now, the culmination of those efforts has revealed a clear vision – we can save the Koala with ‘kisses’.
Kiss points are the points where intact sections of Koala habitat come close to each other, but remain separated by divisions of cleared land.
As we all know the remaining Koala habitat in Australia is extremely fragmented, but some areas come close to ‘kissing’ each other at certain points in the landscape. These connections could be key to saving the Koala.
If we can achieve contiguous habitat, then all creatures great and small could traverse through the bush unthreatened. Humans could walk this trail under gum trees with Koalas happily in the branches overhead.
The first phase of this project will be a scientific exercise using software to plot the kiss points over 1.5 million square kilometres of land. Imagine, once we have identified those areas, landholders could be given incentives to plant Koala forests that link those fragmented habitats. Every kiss we can connect in the near future will help ensure the survival of the Koala.
This is what recovery of the Koala will need to look like. Not another “into the future koala recovery plan” that are only words, not actions. AKF is all about recovery of the species and with the Federal Government now 7 years behind writing a recovery plan for the Koala, it is clear we must take matters into our own hands and launch a project like this to show our leaders the way.
To find out more about this new vision for the Koala visit
www.savethekoala.com/our-work/kiss
Regards,
Deborah
