Jimboomba couple Ben and Lauren Moran have cashed in on a council grant to help clear heavy lantana weed from their property.
The $10,000 grant will help koalas move through the 3ha property which is littered with the prickly plant.
“We have quite a few koalas on our property,” Mrs Moran said.
“They can’t crawl around as much with the dense lantana on the ground.
“Clearing the lantana has been quite a hard slog for us – we have a steep property, and 80% of it is lantana. This grant will help us a lot.”
The grant was part of the city’s EnviroGrants program which this round allocated $175,000 in funding.
A Griffith University project to profile koala DNA was also awarded $10,000.
The project will recruit citizen scientists to spot, photograph and collect koala scat (faeces) to help understand the families, relationships and movements of the marsupial.
Environment chair Jon Raven said EnviroGrants support people and organisations who are leading the way in environmental research, protection and care.
Other projects to be awarded funding include:
- A University of Queensland program which will examine paralysis in rainbow lorikeets and flying foxes. Scientists will investigate if the condition is a result of ingesting certain plant species. The study received $10,000.
- Logan Village State School’s P&C will get $1958 to establish a sustainable food garden.
- Flagstone State Community College will use a $2000 grant to monitor possums, sugar gliders and other local wildlife.
- There were 14 individual wildlife carer grants, including a city-wide program to rescue and rehabilitate injured flying foxes.
- A Jimboomba program to rehabilitate injured reptiles and amphibians received funding.
- Queensland Trust for Nature will get almost $10,000 for floodplain revegetation at Tamborine.
