SERIES 29 | Episode 14

Jerry Coleby-Williams visits Karawatha Forest with Professor Darryl Jones, Ecologist at Griffith University, to see the successful project they have been working on creating a wildlife corridor.

Located 18km from the centre of Brisbane, Karawatha Forest includes dry Eucalypt forest and wet heathland.

A bridge has been built and planted to create a seamless transition from the forest on one side of the road to the other. Small birds, such as fairy wrens, finches, silvereyes and robins can now take cover in the vegetation as they go from tree to tree. The first plant species used were bottlebrush (Callistemon viminalis) and wattles, which grew quickly to provide shelter; while those early wattles are now dying, they provide habitat for animals such as lizards in the leaf litter they have created. Poles were ‘planted’ as substitute trees to allow marsupials such as the squirrel glider to travel across the space until the larger species of grey gums (Eucalyptus punctata) grew sufficiently.

The site also includes a high rope ladder to connect the two areas for climbing animals such as possums and koalas, and an underpass was built from concrete and is being used by fround animals – lizards, frogs, and marsupials. Exclusion fences help direct animals to their “right of way” and away from the road.

Paula Ross, from the Karawatha Forest Protection Society, shows Jerry some of the other key species, including Bailey’s stringybark (Eucalyptus baileyana), needlebark stringybark (Eucalyptus planchoniana), geebungs (Persoonia stradbrokensis) and the blotched hyacinth orchid (Dipodium variegatum). The area also contains broad-leafed paperbarks (Melaleuca quinquenervia) and the ancient basket fern (Drynaria sp.), whose existence predates flowers and dates back more than 410 million years.

Karawatha Project

Karawatha Forest Discovery Centre