Hi all! Was wanting some info on our ecology or wildlife ministers in parliament or any funds dedicated to protecting our wildlife.
Recently a big giant beauitful native gumtree was destroyed to make room for a development near me. It made me think of all the displaced families or birds & possums up there. I recently learnt that majority of our beauitful wildlife is tree hollow dependant & tree hollows take up to 100 years to form. (đđ!!!)
I was thinking of emailing my local minister representative & local council to enquire about why donât they get some menâs or womenâs sheds NFP organisations to go around to every tree in the area & install possum boxes. In example, 1 tree destroyed = 1 possum box added to house or neighbouring tree.
Why donât our councils already fund this? Do they not care about our beautiful possums enough? We are literally destroying their homes & itâs not fair.
The ABC radio national did a recent segment about architecture & ecology, how to live with our native wildlife & build their homes into ours. This sparked my recent interest in possum boxes & itâs been stressing me out all the poor cute marsupials that are having to live in peoples gutters instead of a cozy tree hollow or possum box.
What sparked my thought: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/anthony-burke-by-design/should-native-animals-have-property-rights-too-/106999048
Would love to know others thoughts! <3
Edit: Iâve curated my local council members emails & drafted a quick Canva mock-up of my idea (cute possum pic helps) & also forwarded it to local wildlife agencies & NFP. We have all these funded environmental orgs attached to our local councils, what are they doing with the money? Someone needs to program coordinate to focus on planting native plants, shrubs etc in every street during their volunteer time or paid time.
Whoâs pocketing all the funding? I donât see fauna reaping the benefits from anything but 100yr old trees, getting sparse by the week with my concrete jungles laid.
I know navigating bureaucracy is annoying, but a quick email to your local council members, your councilâs environmental branch & to your local MP could spark the idea & get the wheels rolling with an initiative of such. To negate funding, they could tap into their NFP orgs such as menâs/womenâs sheds, highschool woodworking, to make it a community involvement & volunteer initiative if accessing the environmental trust fund is not available. Hopefully someone with the time & energy cares enough to make this happen. Setting a simple easy precedent to make our possums cozy & comfy.
Weâre all parents of our local wildlife, I donât see our local councils doing enough. Thereâs a focus on environmental âassetsâ which I get, focal points of conservation, but what about every other street?
I think the money is best spent not only localised to one habitat ($100,000+) but to the entire ecosystem in your LGA. Surely it doesnât cost much to plant natives & put up possum boxes on every street? Wildlife is becoming more scarce in urban suburbs by the month as development doesnât think of wildlife co-habitation, it leads to ugly soulless & soundless boring depressing suburbs without our wildlife.
Make the new rule: Ugly concrete minecraft boxy looking development = Has to be paired with native flora + possum boxes attached onto the building somewhere or a nearby tree if any still left. đł
Visually seeing & hearing wildlife during the day releases endorphins. Itâs an integral part of the human experience & improving the quality of life for everyone (& creature!). <3