At Friends of the Koala, we believe in a future for koalas in the NSW Northern Rivers. Operating for over 35 years, we have an established history of working towards positive outcomes for koalas. We are licensed through NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service to rescue, rehabilitate, and release sick and injured koalas. We operate the only specialised Koala Hospital in the region which is licensed through the veterinary board of NSW. Each year on average, we tend to 350 sick, injured, and orphaned koalas, which is approximately 50% of all wild koalas rescued in NSW. ‘Burribi’ (Widjabul word for Koala) is our Community Education and Administration Centre in East Lismore. It is our operational hub for community engagement and advocacy activity, connecting us with a multitude of stakeholder groups across the Northern Rivers. We work with all levels of government to advocate for koalas and drive positive outcomes across the region. We also negotiate with landowners to preserve and extend known koala habitat through targeted Habitat Restoration Projects. Through our Community Nursery, we issue koala food trees and other rainforest species to private landholders and tree planting groups at a sub-commercial rate, facilitating the maximum return in terms of number of trees in the ground for their available budget. Over the past three decades, we have issued over 200,000 koala food trees which are now planted across the Northern Rivers (total plants issued is closer to 500,000 however we only collect data on food trees, not rainforest species). The recent expansion of our nursery facility will allow us to issue a further 200,000 plus koala food trees within the next three years.
