By Callum Ludwig
A young Upper Yarra primary school student has taken steps to help a beloved Australian icon.
Scarlett was inspired by the plight of koalas after a family holiday to Australia Zoo and returned home wanting to raise money to support the beloved marsupials.
Scarlett said she saw the number of koalas was going down rapidly and decided to do something about it.
“I was very happy with how it went, I didn’t expect to raise this much but here we are. I had a few people say ‘Let’s save a koala, I really want to do that’ and I was really happy with that,” she said.
“I am hoping now that I can adopt a koala and help the place I adopt it by supporting it, its relatives in the wild and koalas in general.”
Scarlett’s efforts fell conveniently in line with the Australian Koala Foundations (AKF)’ Save the Koala Month which runs throughout September.
Scarlett’s mum Leanne said Scarlett has always really loved animals.
“Recently she’s been learning about how humans impact upon the environment and the animals in it and found out koalas were quite endangered, and she hadn’t realised how threatened they were,” she said.
“So she wanted to raise some money to try and help and decided to put together a fundraiser at school. She approached the principal, and her dad and I donated some prizes and she ran a guess the number of lollies jar and a raffle.”
Scarlett managed to raise $538, over and above their initial goal of $360 to adopt a koala for 12 months.
“The rest of the money she is putting towards planting trees in their habitat and I think she’s already considering whether she does another fundraiser next year to be able to adopt for another 12 months. She wants to do it ongoing and is very proud of herself, she didn’t think she would raise that much,” she said.
“She’s that kind of kid, when she sees things that don’t seem right to her she’s definitely affected by it. She wanted to help and I put it in her court to organise and she did. I am really proud of her for actually making it happen and not just talking about it.”
The AKF Adopt a Koala program has opportunities to adopt koala joeys, adults, wild koalas or a mum and her joeys.
Leane said Scarlett hopes for more people to get involved in helping koalas.
“She just wants to encourage anyone else if they, you know, interested in helping to save the koalas to have a look at the website and see what they can do.”
The annual fundraising Save the Koala month enables the Australian Koala Foundation to undertake vital work such as the Koala Kiss Project which aims to connect koala habitats throughout Australia.
Australian Koala Foundation Chair Deborah Tabart OAM said habitat loss remains the biggest threat to the Koala, and much of it is extremely fragmented.
“The AKF has spent more than 24 years studying Koala habitats and we believe the Koala Kiss Project which will join separate areas of habitat (kiss points), to create one contiguous corridor from Cairns to Melbourne will help mitigate habitat loss,” she said.
“This is a long-term project and one we hope will one day see the Koala, as well as other Australian wildlife, have safe homes for generations to come.”
