OUR BUSHFIRE RECOVERY PARTNERS

When a disaster at the scale of the recent Australian 2019-20 bushfires breaks out, one thing is clear - no one organisation can meet the needs of all wildlife across the country. That’s why WWF-Australia has partnered with incredible groups in all states and territories to ensure help is received wherever it’s needed most. Since the bushfires, we’ve supported 148 projects and more than 175 partners working on-the-ground around the country, as well as with governments, businesses, scientists and communities to ensure long-term plans and projects are in place so we can build back better.

Below is a list of partners we’re working with across Australia to rescue, restore and future-proof our forests and wildlife from bushfires.

Organisations WWF-Australia partnered with for wildlife response and rescue during and post the bushfires. 

Australia Wide

Affected Wildlife Report: PhD graduate Dr Van Eeden is leading the writing of the report with a range of conservation scientists to estimate the number of native animals killed by the 2019-20 bushfires. The report will underpin public comments to date by WWF and Professor Chris Dickman that more than one billion animals have died.

Read the report: Australia's 2019-20 Bushfires: The Wildlife Toll (September 2020)

Australian Veterinary Association: grants to vets operating on the front line, providing care to injured wildlife in fire-affected regions.

BirdLife Australia: mapping fire impacts on lyrebirds, assessing important breeding habitats, estimating populations and identifying priority sites for protection, recovery and restoration activities. Find out more. 

Google: ‘An Eye on Recovery’ is a large-scale collaborative camera sensor project that measures the impact of the 2019-20 summer bushfires on wildlife and helps us to respond to future fires in Australia using innovative technology. Read more about An Eye on Recovery here.

New South Wales/ACT

ACT Wildlife: supporting to purchase specialist foods and accommodation facilities for animals in their care, conduct food drop and monitoring wombats in fire-affected areas, conduct training for additional volunteers and continue to grow the capacity of the organisation to respond to future fires. Biolink: surveying burnt forests in the north coast fire-affected area. Rapid searches by trained ecologists locate koala scats at the base of koala feed trees. If koala scats are found, searches of the trees are made to try to locate koalas. Read more about the findings and report from biolink. 

Byron Bay Mobile Wildlife Hospital: launch the mobile Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital to provide specialist care and cutting edge treatment to wildlife. The mobile clinic can travel anywhere in Australia to respond to emergencies. Watch the wildlife hospital on wheels take off. 

Centre for Ecosystem Science, University of NSW: assessing and surveying the impact of bushfires on platypuses and their habitat in NSW, led by Professor Richard Kingsford. Find out more about the impacts. Drone detection of koalas: US drone operator and cinematographer Douglas Thron is testing his hi-tech drone-mounted infrared camera to rapidly search burnt forests to locate koalas and other mammals that may require rescuing.

Ecology Australia: will undertake rapid assessments of the impacts of the bushfires on reptiles, birds, mammals and potentially frogs across four areas in the north coast fire-affected area. Read more about the rapid assessment findings.  Friends of the Koala, Lismore: funding supplies, such as an ultrasound machine, and building more koala housing to expand the capacity of the in-house clinic so that more koalas can be cared for on-site, minimising the stress on already impacted, injured animals.

WildBnB: provision of artificial nest boxes for a suite of threatened glider species including the yellow-bellied glider, greater glider and squirrel glider. These species have been displaced due to the loss of hollow-bearing trees and are now more vulnerable to a range of key threats. These artificial nest boxes are critical in providing shelter and refuge while forests regenerate.

Port Stephens Koalas: funding equipment for the new veterinary hospital facility in Port Stephens Koalas to enhance capacity to treat and rehabilitate koalas and other wildlife, as well as focusing on koala care, research and education. Come behind the scenes at Port Stephens Koala Hospital. 

Wildcare Queanbeyan: providing food drops and veterinarian medical supplies in response to the Black Range fire in Tallaganda National Park, NSW, home of eastern grey kangaroos, swamp wallabies, red-necked wallabies, possums and gliders, including the threatened greater glider.

Woolworths and Foodbank: funding the cost of the helicopter for aerial food drops during February 2020. Woolworths and Foodbank have partnered to provide the tens of thousands of carrots and sweet potatoes for the drops. The status of each wallaby colony will continue to be monitored and assess the need for further food drops.

Queensland

Canines for Wildlife: supporting detection dogs, their trainers and dog handlers to assess fire-affected areas in Bulburin National Park and the impact on the Endangered black-tailed dusky antechinus, the silver-headed antechinus and the Bulburin macadamia nut tree.

Ipswitch Koala Protection Society: WWF-Australia proudly supports a number of operations like the Ipswich Koala Protection Society (IPKS) as their team of dedicated carers provide ongoing care and medical treatment to sick and injured koalas. Explore a day in the life of a koala carer. 

RSPCA Queensland: providing support to the leading wildlife care facility during the recent bushfires in Queensland to enable urgent treatment and ongoing care for the huge influx of injured wildlife, in particular koalas.

University of Sunshine Coast: bringing together innovative technologies for the first phase of a three year Koala Health Resilience Project, including detection dogs, thermal imagery and metagenomics to assess the extent to which koalas can adapt to severe environmental changes such as the 2019-20 bushfires.

Victoria

Phillip Island Nature Park: providing critical care rehabilitation for koala burn victims from the Mallacoota area that have completed intensive care at Healesville Sanctuary. PINP rehabilitation facilities have the ability to house koalas as well as threatened ground-dwelling species, such as bandicoots and potoroos. Three of the enclosures were funded by WWF-Australia.

Waterholes Wildlife Sanctuary: caring for injured and orphaned koalas and kangaroos, facilitating food drops and providing water stations for wildlife in bushfire-affected areas.

Zoos Victoria Australian Wildlife Health Centre: assisted in the evacuation of priority threatened species and supporting the ongoing care of koalas from the Mallacoota fire. Funds also supported the set-up of wildlife triage sites directly within fire-affected areas.

South Australia

Kangaroo Island Land for Wildlife: leading the response to save the remaining Endangered Kangaroo Island dunnarts, which due to the fires may now be on the very brink of extinction.

Nature Foundation SA: provide urgent support for the Endangered Kangaroo Island glossy black cockatoo. About half of the glossy's habitat has been lost, including critical breeding sites

Western Australia

FAWNA Inc: supporting the provision of much-needed emergency supplies required for animals found during black walks, as well as back-feeding and watering that is going to be desperately needed to help the surviving animals.

Native Animal Rescue: providing back feeding and water supplies for fire-affected kangaroos and wallabies, over the next 12 months, as well as feeding and rehabilitation for injured black cockatoos and orphaned wildlife.

Tasmania

Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary: providing urgent medical care and rehabilitation to injured animals through the dedicated wildlife clinic.

Organisations WWF-Australia is partnered with to protect wildlife, recover their habitat and restore our wild places now that the fires are out.

New South Wales/ACT

Australian Seed Bank partnership: Supporting an ongoing program of proactive seed collecting, germination trials, propagation, reintroductions, and long-term seed banking of Australia’s threatened plant species. Seed collections will improve the genetic diversity of native species held in seed banks and will improve knowledge of species to inform future threat assessments and management. This program is partly funded by RB Botanica by Air Wick partnership, led out of WWF-UK.

Bangalow Koalas: funding revegetation of native vegetation in northeast NSW to plant 100,000 tree seedlings to create habitat for koalas and other wildlife, and establish critically endangered lowland subtropical rainforest.

Ecotourism Australia: Ecotourism Australia working in partnership with WWF-Australia to select eight bushfire-affected destinations (Scenic Rim, Kangaroo Island, Blue Mountains, Central Coast, Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie-Hastings, Quandamooka and East Gippsland) to receive support to build back better and revitalise their local economies through nature-based tourism.

Environmental Defenders Office working together to Defend the Unburnt Six: WWF-Australia and Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) are working together to defend the remaining pockets of unburnt forests in six landscapes across Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria that urgently need protection. Together, we are advocating for stronger environmental laws and helping the community use existing laws to implement greater protection for threatened species and their last remaining refuges.

Envite: funding to plant koala food and habitat trees in north eastern NSW, transforming areas into vital koala habitat The Great Eastern Ranges Initiative (GER): a series of projects to restore habitat and support movement of koalas and other-dependent species such as greater gliders and spotted-tailed quolls, taking place in strategic locations across the Great Eastern Ranges. Find out more about the decline of Greater Gliders in the Blue Mountains. 

Manyana Matters: Supported Manyana Matters Environmental Association to produce a five minute campaign video to advocate for protection of 20 hectares of unburnt forest at Manyana on the NSW South Coast from being bulldozed for the residential development Manyana Beach Estate.

NSW Landcare: installing wildlife nest boxes and supporting a Landcare Coordinator to restore the diversity of hollows in areas impacted by the loss of old trees. Artificial nest boxes will be designed, built and installed to attract wildlife such as forest owls, gliders and possums back to burnt habitat on the North Coast of NSW.

Rewilding Aust Booderee - Jervis Bay ACT: WWF-Australia welcomed Rewilding Australia to its fold, forming a dedicated unit to deliver major rewilding projects to help restore degraded landscapes and reverse the decline of native wildlife.

Total Environment Centre (TEC): funding to advocate for the protection of habitat for nationally significant Macarthur koala population, Campbelltown, southwest Sydney.

Queensland

OWAD Koala Detection Dogs: koala detection dogs ‘Taz’ and ‘Missy’ are being deployed to burnt forests around Cunningham's Gap, west of Brisbane, to rapidly locate koalas which may be at risk from starvation, dehydration and disease from infected burns.

Victoria

City of Greater Bendigo and the Department of Land, Water, Environment and Planning: installing and trailing a cooling system for flying foxes, as well as the ferns and trees in the park to reduce heat stress during extreme heat events. Check out the bats enjoying a nice shower!

Organisations WWF-Australia is partnered with to secure the future of Australia’s natural resources for people and nature.

New South Wales/ACT

Bega Local Aboriginal Land Council: undertaking traditional and cultural burning on extensive landholdings on the fire-ravaged South Coast of New South Wales.

Ecotourism Australia ACT: partnering to fund support for six bushfire-affected communities to rebuild their tourism industries in environmentally sustainable and culturally responsible ways. Over two years provide financial assistance for these communities to be certified as ECO Destinations and provide toolkits and workshops so they can make the most of nature-based tourism opportunities.

Jali Local Aboriginal Council: supporting purchase of equipment for rangers to survey and assess the impact of fires on Ngunya Jargoon Indigenous Protected Area (IPA). The area covers over 1,114 hectares of Lower Richmond Valley (North Coast of NSW). WWF funding also allows for purchase of equipment for rangers to detect wildlife and record the presence of threatened species.

We couldn’t do any of this work without the generosity of our supporters in Australia and around the world. Join us on this journey. Together it’s possible.