The Land Restoration Fund is investing in a collaborative project with Seqwater to restore native vegetation around Wivenhoe Dam. The project is being delivered by a contractor, CO2 Australia, and will involve planting more than 150 000 trees over seven sites covering more than 170 hectares around the dam’s edge.
The environmental plantings delivered through the Wivenhoe project will buffer and extend core koala habitat areas around Wivenhoe Dam, supporting the state’s interest in the conservation of that iconic species.
Working with the Land Restoration Fund, we are restoring an ex-paddock, ex-grazing land to the forest and the regional ecosystem that it once was.
The project will provide continual habitat for koalas, so historically there’s been grazed patches, or cleared patches, within the Wivenhoe Dam catchment. By restoring these areas, and intensively managing the pests, it will really help connect and support the population of koalas in the region.
We are out here with a team of 10 people, we’re planting 20,000 trees a day. Its really nice when we get to do a project like this with such significance both for Seqwater and animal habitat.
The carbon credits from the project will help defray the costs. The Land Restoration Fund in return for its investment, will receive an estimated 39,000 Australian Carbon Credit Units from the project in its first 18 years; that’s worth about half a million dollars in today’s currency, and represents a new cost-effective model for the delivery of new habitat for threatened species; and for Seqwater represents a new cost-effective model for catchment improvement to support their water quality objectives.
The Wivenhoe project is an innovative new model for delivering priority co-benefits for Queensland.
For more information visit the Land Restoration Fund website.