Shower Story + Ecologi: Restoring Wildlife Corridors for Koalas

Shower Story is commited to protecting and enriching local ecosystems by contributing to local charities that restore Australian fauna and flora. This is why we have made the pledge to plant one tree in Australia for every sale above $100 made through our store, beginning February 2021 in partnership with Ecologi and One Tree Planted – a 501(c)(3) Non-profit environmental charity. This Australian project aims to restoring wildlife corridors for koalas West of Byron Bay, New South Wales.

This project was set up in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales to protect and save the local koala community. The main objective of this project is to establish a koala wildlife corridor, creating a habitat connection from the surrounding Byron Bay area, heading west to Tenterfield, north to the border of Queensland, and south to Grafton. This wildlife corridor planting includes restoring habitat on private property, connecting existing fragmented koala habitat and colonies of koala, and planting over 50,000 trees.

The project will conserve, rehabilitate and restore the population of the iconic Australian koala throughout the Northern Rivers, as well as other endangered species and their habitats. Koalas in Australia are vulnerable threatened species, especially after the devastating fires and drought of 2019-2020. Habitat degradation and fragmentation by changes in land use and wildfires are the greatest anthropogenic threat to the koala and other native wildlife. Koalas are also vulnerable to the effects of drought and disease, and climate change amplifies many of the threats to their populations.

The species of trees planted in this project include:

• Tallowwood (Eucalyptus microcorys)
• Swamp mahogany (Eucalyptus robusta)
• Forest red gum (Eucalyptus tereticornis)
• Paperbark (Melaleuca quinquenervia)
• Small-fruited grey gum (Eucalyptus propinqua)
• Flooded gum (Eucalyptus grandis)

Our initiative seeks to reduce the threat of habitat fragmentation as part of the wildlife corridor, in addition to planting native trees on the ground in Australia, and to help support the koala population to bounce back. You can find out more information on the project through Ecologi's project page here.