Peter Lloyd, Gary Swanson and Richard Bird discuss their property Wallamara which will serve as protected habitat for koalas
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00In an overview, Richard, southeast of Armidale.
00:05So we'll probably resurrect that, run with that.
00:08And put roughly in place in about 1870 to here.
00:12So we're now all in Armidale Jamaica.
00:30Tessellated bark, box trees.
00:44There's no offshoots of timber used.
00:47It's quite an impressive species.
00:51So Peter just said this is a grey.
00:53Yeah.
00:55Yeah.
00:56Yeah.
00:57Yeah.
00:59Yeah.
01:02Yeah.
01:05Yeah.
01:08Yeah.
01:23Yeah, yeah, we'll see most of it, most all of it's up here, it's all up here, it's where you go on your journeys and it sort of comes down.
01:30It's where Dummy Creek, Dummy Creek comes down through.
01:39Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll see most of it, most all of it's up here, it's all up here, it's where you go on your journeys and it sort of comes down.
01:53Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll see most of it, most all of it's up here, it's where you go on your journeys and it sort of comes down.
02:12Yeah, yeah, I saw that before, the little red bits on the ground.
02:23I mean, those burnt trees, the new younger growth coming through, so this is all koala
02:50habitat.
02:51So, you know, we've got a lot of work to do to actually get all this up to speed.
03:11And this is looking so healthy.
03:24Yes.
03:25It's never looked this healthy.
03:26So, before the fire, you didn't have the same amount of regrowth?
03:30No.
03:31And I think, you know, because of the fire, the trees obviously dropped their seeds.
03:37And it's such a, it's like pretty difficult country to get a complete pig control program.
03:41You know, like it's so hard to get all of it done at once, you know.
03:46And then the CRC for Invasive Species, I think it's called.
03:51Yep.
03:52A couple of those guys at UNE as well as part of the CRC.
03:56So, not always, you know, it would be great to get some research done.
04:07What the tender does allow us to do is providing the funds from the state government.
04:16We can put that towards active conservation management for the property.
04:20This was an agreement in perpetuity, meant that not only were we preserving that land
04:25for our own time, this was in perpetuity for our successional plans for families and anybody
04:31who might come in.
04:32So, plus the fact that there's a funding arrangement that comes in each year.
04:37So, it means that we can control feral animals and feral plants and really manage the property
04:45as best because from an agricultural point of view, we can't generate income from this land.
04:50So, we're generating income through conservation.
04:53What better way is there to go?
04:55We knew from a lot of, again, records from people telling us that this was koala habitat.
05:02And the koalas were probably, unfortunately, wiped out probably by bushfire.
05:06There's certainly scratch marks on the trees and from the old graziers and previous owners,
05:12they've said things like they couldn't sleep at night for the koala noises.
05:16The fact that there is no fence between here and three or four hundred thousand hectares
05:21of National Park Estate means that if we can be the initiator of bringing koalas back
05:27where they're in a population that they will survive, that can only be a good thing.
05:32Basically, it comes down to a feeling good about conserving something,
05:37but it means that we can actually do something now that's meaningful.
05:41It's basically what a small group of people can do privately for the benefit.