Big Otway Tree Plant
The Big Otway Tree Plant is an annual community conservation initiative run by the Conservation Ecology to restore critical Manna Gum woodlands on Cape Otway.
It’s a vital community event that forms an integral part of our Great Ocean Road Koala Habitat Rescue project.
Each year since 2014 thousands of plants have been put in the ground by hundreds of volunteers from the local community, and as far afield as Geelong and Melbourne.
It’s a chance for community to give back to the landscapes they love and have a real impact ensuring a future habitat for one of Australia’s most iconic species, the koala.
The event came about due to an ecological crisis that was unfolding, with 70% of the Manna Gum woodlands on Cape Otway being lost the 20 years to 2014.
This ecosystem is a critical habitat for koalas, but it was in significant decline due to a combination of past land-clearing, inappropriate fire regimes and high koala numbers over-browsing, which prevents tree recovery and ultimately causes canopy dieback.
To break this cycle, the Conservation Ecology Centre developed a landscape-scale strategy with three core scientific objectives:
Species Diversity: Increasing the structural complexity of the forest by planting not only canopy trees but also mid-storey and understorey species to support a broader range of biodiversity.
Connectivity: Re-establishing wildlife corridors across private landholdings to facilitate the safe dispersal of fauna and improve genetic flow between isolated populations.
Habitat Resilience: Selecting indigenous seed stock suited to the local microclimate to ensure long-term survival rates in a changing climate.
Community-Led Conservation
While the project is guided by ecological data, its implementation relies on community involvement.
Large-scale revegetation requires significant labour to ensure seedlings are planted correctly and protected from herbivores (via guarding) during their vulnerable establishment phase.
The collaborative “planting weekends” allows for the restoration of several hectares of habitat in a single weekend, directly contributing to the expansion of the available food source for the Cape Otway koalas and stabilizing the local ecosystem.
Details of the next Big Otway Tree Plant will be shared via social media on Instagram and Facebook and also in our Quarterly Research Update newsletter, which you can subscribe to below.
