Hello Koala Lovers,
Save the Koala Month is here again and it is a time for all of us to really think through how much we love this beautiful creature and how we can all help it.
It seems a long time ago, when in 1989 I said, “Let us have a Save the Koala Month.” Now people from all over the world celebrate. It makes me incredibly proud and over the years I have seen some wonderful fundraising ideas.
This organisation does not take any government funding and this was a key principle by the Board who first employed me all those years ago. Supporters who consider us as their charity donation see this as an important part of our work. When I am interviewed by media, I always feel that I am speaking for you and I do thank you so much for any donation, big or small.
This year, with the ability to travel more, I have spent a lot of time in New South Wales looking at Koala habitats and re-visiting areas that I looked at in May 2019 when the drought was in full swing.
Since then, bushfires and of course flooding this year
One of the things that makes me so concerned is water, and when we launched the Koala Manifesto we did so on World Water Day on the 22nd of March 2021. Water and Koalas are synonymous and as I drove west in the last few weeks, I saw creeks and river systems that were highly degraded and still lacking water.
Over the coming months, I am going to be writing to the relevant Ministers to tell them what I have seen and of course will continue to write to Minister Plibersek. Regular readers will know that I wrote to her when she got her new job.
She has not replied but her Threatened Species Commissioner did, which is attached for your consideration. I would love to know what you think of this reply. I certainly know how I feel about it, but would really like your opinions about what you might do next if you were me.
In the meantime, let us celebrate Save the Koala Month and as private citizens keep our planet safer by doing all we can to recycle, re-use and minimise waste.
As always, on my trip I met incredible folk who change my thinking on each visit. I feel now that when I speak for the Koala I have information I have seen with my own eyes.
Please too, have a look at the Koala Army’s latest email because the role of hollow bearing trees (often Koala trees) are sadly lacking in the landscape and I can see, particularly out west where I have been, that the bush is going silent and the absence of cockatoos, galahs and other parrots that need tree hollows was scary.
Another reason to protect Koala trees. The Koala Protection Act does that – I wish our government would see fit to honour that as a fact.
Regards as always,
Deborah