Closing the gap: koala habitat reconnection in South Gundurimba, NSW

In 2016, a phone call from a Bangalow neighbour triggered a campaign to save a 400-metre stretch of critical habitat. Ten years later, that small act has grown into the largest grassroots koala-corridor restoration program in Australia. Since 2019 Bangalow Koalas Inc. has now planted more than 547,000 trees across 184 plantings on 134 properties in seven Northern Rivers shires — restoring 491 hectares of koala habitat, equivalent to more than four hundred football fields. Within a 20,732.6 km² landscape encompassing the Clarence, Richmond, and Tweed River catchments.

Since 2019 Bangalow Koalas has delivered measurable, landscape-scale environmental outcomes across the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales — one of Australia’s most important strongholds for the endangered east-coast koala.

Australia's east-coast koalas were listed as endangered in February 2022. In the Northern Rivers region of NSW — one of the species' most genetically significant strongholds - habitat clearing, vehicle strikes, dog attacks, disease, climate impacts continue to fragment populations.

Our work directly addresses one of the greatest threats to koala survival: habitat fragmentation. Across much of the Northern Rivers, koala habitat persists only as isolated paddock trees, riparian strips or small remnant forest pockets within heavily cleared grazing and plantation landscapes. Through our Koala Wildlife Corridor project, we are reconnecting these fragmented habitats at a landscape scale, creating safe movement corridors and increasing habitat connectivity for koalas and other threatened wildlife species.

Approximately 90% of NSW koalas live on private land, making private-landholder restoration the only viable route to landscape-scale recovery. Bangalow Koalas collaborates directly with private landholders, 3 Indigenous ranger groups (Minyumai Rangers, Githabul Rangers and Jagun Alliance), 4 professional bush regeneration teams, Landcare groups, and local, state and federal government agencies. We are also supported by a groundswell of local volunteers who reliably turn up to help with our restoration projects.

All restoration sites are strategically identified using data from the Northern Rivers Regional Koala Conservation Strategy and the NSW Koala Strategy, ensuring plantings strengthen priority wildlife corridors and close critical gaps between remnant habitats.

In addition to koalas, our projects significantly increase local biodiversity by restoring complex native forest ecosystems using a wide diversity of endemic plant species sourced from local provenance seed. These revegetation efforts improve habitat quality, increase canopy cover, stabilise soils, improve water quality in riparian zones and create refuge habitat for a broad range of native fauna including threatened birds, mammals, reptiles, and pollinators.

Our restoration work is already demonstrating measurable ecological success. Atlas of Living Australia records show Bangalow Koalas has contributed close to four hundred koala sightings since 2018, compared with just two recorded sightings in Bangalow before our program began. Based on monitoring outcomes from recent plantings, koalas are now being detected on restored sites within as little as 18 months to two years after establishment. Preliminary surveys indicate that just under one-third of planting sites assessed to date have already recorded koala sightings or evidence including scats and scratch markings.

To strengthen long-term ecological monitoring, we recently secured funding to purchase a DJI Mavic 3 Thermal drone to undertake baseline thermal surveys across 102 restoration sites planted between 2019 and 2025. This monitoring will provide critical data on koala occupancy, wildlife movement and habitat use, helping us evaluate restoration success, inform adaptive management, and support future funding applications.

Our mission is to create a network of continuous wildlife habitat corridors across the Northern Rivers region, connecting fragmented habitat so that koalas and other native species can live and move safely. The network extends from Byron Bay westward toward Tenterfield, north to the Queensland border, and south toward Grafton.

With a long-term goal is to plant 850,000 trees by 2030, creating permanent, climate-resilient wildlife corridors that secure the future of koalas in the Northern Rivers.

Within the Lismore Shire koala habitat is highly fragmented, the landscape around South Gundurimba has been extensively cleared so there is little habitat to support the resident koala population, which has led to over browsing of food trees and many deaths on the roads as koalas try to negotiate the hostile landscape. Increasing the availability of good quality habitat and providing a continuous safe corridor for koalas and other wildlife to move away from roads is critical to the long-term survival of this endangered species in the wild.

The site sits on the banks of the Wilsons River, part of the Richmond Catchment which is in very poor condition due largely to historic land clearing, nutrient run-off from surrounding agricultural land use and sediment input, weed infestation and erosion. Riparian restoration has been identified as a high priority action to greatly improve conditions within the Catchment.

This project would close a strategic gap in the Northern Rivers Koala Wildlife Corridor. The location sits within the Lismore shire koala planning area, links to remnant habitat to the wider network we have been building since 2019 and brings 1,600 locally endemic koala food and rainforest trees into a highly degraded landscape.

The planting will restore 0.5 hectares immediately adjacent to three previously planted areas in 2022, 2024 and 2025 with 22,875 endemic koala and rainforest trees. The project involves primary weed control across 0.5ha in South Gundurimba. Followed by planting of 1,600 koala and rainforest trees and maintenance carried out 8 times over 2 years. The project will also include ecological monitoring of three-angle photo monitoring with reference posts, six-monthly field surveys, koala scat and scratch surveys and contribution of koala sightings data to the NSW Government Bionet database and the Atlas of Living Australia. Baseline thermal drone surveys conducted over the duration of the grant period.