An innovative program to plant koala trees on golf courses has been developed by Helensvale Green group leader David Cuschieri. David has convinced the managers of the Arundel golf course that they can help the local koala population by planting food trees along the sides of the fairways. Golf courses are small havens of green in our city and often link remaining patches of bushland while providing safe, car free places to live, feed and breed. David and his group are auspiced by Gecko and hope to soon get some good news about grant funding to expand their current planting program. At present it is self-funded and isn’t cheap as they have to purchase tools, wire netting, plants and fertilizer.
The group has planted 73 trees so far in the limited access they have to the golf course when golfers aren’t using the fairways and David says “We are looking to reach 100 trees on the golf course this month, then take a break over the December holiday period before beginning again mid-January for the second half of the project and second half of the golf course.In the meantime, the next month will be used to simply water and maintain the existing 100 trees to ensure a high survival rate.”
The group can be contacted by Facebook on https://www.facebook.com/koalasonthegreen/
Our koalas are having a terrible time with the fires so programs like this are very important and Gecko is proud to support this small group’s wonderful work.
