In collaboration with Rio Tinto Coal Australia, UQ researchers have found former coal mines can be successfully transformed into comfortable koala accommodation.
At the Blair Athol Mine in Central Queensland, zoologists from UQ have tracked the first koala to independently move into a rehabilitated coal mine site.
Dr Sean FitzGibbon, from the Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation, said the located animal had originally been tracked in bushland on the Blair Athol Mine, near Clermont, before recently moving into the rehabilitated area.
“We feel the process has come full circle for the koalas,” Dr FitzGibbon said.
“Their habitat was mined for several years, then rehabilitated, and now 12 years later the trees are of sufficient size and species mix for koalas to move back in.
“It’s the first time in the 20-year study that we have found a koala using the rehabilitated landscape.
“As far as we know it’s the first time that this has been recorded for koalas on former coal mining land.”
Researchers in the Koala Venture, a partnership between The University of Queensland's Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation and Rio Tinto, now believe an entire Central Queensland coal mine could successfully be restored to a koala habitat once it closes post-2015.
UQ researchers started studying koalas at Blair Athol Mine in 1989. Since then the study has provided important information on the ecology of these inland koalas, including food-tree and habitat preferences and the impact of drought on breeding behaviour.
Andrew Cole, Blair Athol Mine General Manager Operations, said the research had given the mining company greater insight into working with the native marsupial.
“The research has taught us a great deal about mining operations and koala habitats; we know now how to adjust our land clearing practices to allow koalas to move ahead of our work, and we know the types of trees to grow to encourage koalas to return,” Mr Cole said.
“That has been vindicated by this latest discovery; the land where this koala was found was mined and rehabilitated after we started this research.
“The research gave us the information we needed to rehabilitate this area, and now we know for sure our rehabilitation practices are recreating a native environment suitable for koalas.”
Dr FitzGibbon said the entire landscape occupied by the Blair Athol Mine, due to close in 2015, would have been koala habitat at one time.
“The rehabilitated area has a good connection to older bushland where other koalas are present, so it is very likely it will be recolonised by dispersing koalas," he said.
“There’s no reason to think that the entire mine, come closure, couldn’t become koala habitat; it’s just a matter of time and planting the right trees.
“Existing koala habitats will be important source areas from which koalas can disperse.”
Last year Blair Athol Mine rehabilitated 64 hectares of former mining land.
Media: Dr Sean FitzGibbon (07 3365 2510, 0401 336 066, s.fitzgibbon@uq.edu.au) or Penny Robinson at UQ Communications (07 3365 9723, penny.robinson@uq.edu.au)
