Coordinated effort underway to create koala corridor near Tamworth in 'embryotic stage'

The goal is to create a long-term plan to secure their future in Tamworth, and councillor Phil Betts is leading the charge.

"It's never been a coordinated effort because there were questions about whether they were actually here, and whether the drought had killed them or whether humans had ingressed into their habitat," he said.

"But they're here - so if they're here then let's see if we can get the community behind it and start planting some habitat that is safe for them," he said.

Koalas were spotted on Daruka Road and the group wants to map out where the much-loved marsupials are.

NSW National Park and Wildlife Service, Tamworth Regional Council, Landcare NSW chairperson Stephanie Cameron are all on board and the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital has offered to lend advice.

Cr Betts said now is the time for organisations to put their heads together and find a solution.

He wants to see trees planted for them across the region to protect populations at Daruka and Moonbi.

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But, he said It's not just a case of planting a bunch of eucalyptus trees and hoping for the best.

"It's done in a strategic way so you have corridors of the koala vegetation, the eucalypts that they eat, and you don't have them clustered in busy traffic areas and high density population," he said.

"It needs to be so that it's in a strategic, coordinated way, so that these corridors where these colonies are can be linked."

He doesn't want the koalas attracted to town where there's a risk of attacks from domestic animals or car accidents.

The most important thing is for the project to still allow koalas to have free roam of the area, he said.

"They need to be in the wild, I don't think Tamworth really has got an appetite to have a koala sanctuary ... Gunnedah already has a marsupial park that has koalas in it," he said.

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