Hiddenvale, QLD

Located in South-East Queensland on land traditionally owned by the Yuggera People, Hiddenvale is being restored to biodiverse native forest, enhancing the quality of koala habitat in the region.

Greenfleet is focussed on climate action and ecosystem restoration, and this unique project allows us to bring these processes together with research that is exploring how to future-proof restored native forests for a changing climate. 

Through this collaboration, there are many project partners involved including Queensland Trust for Nature (QTFN), Turner Family Foundation, University of Queensland and the Queensland Government. 

Native revegetation

The entire revegetation area at Hiddenvale sits on the floodplain of the Franklin Vale Creek and Greenfleet’s aim was to re-establish the natural ecosystem that occurs in the area.

In 2021, Greenfleet planted a total of 28,000 native trees across 27 hectares of this property with species such as Southern Salwood (Acacia disparrima subsp. disparrima), Broad Leafed-apple (Angophora subvelutina), and Narrow-leaved Ironbark (Euclyptus crebra).Another important species in this reforestation project is the critically endangered Swamp Tea-tree (Melaleuca irbiana), which naturally occurs in the flood plain area.

Creating legally protected habitat

This collaborative project will play a critical role in taking climate action and in addition to this, it will be pivotal in building and extending the regions’ koala habitat. Greenfleet is working on multiple critical projects that are building koala habitat in Queensland including Dangerbridge and Koala Crossing. 

The project aims to establish emergent, canopy and understorey species to restore natural canopy cover and increase koala food tree abundance. In the planting design, Greenfleet included species that are important as food sources and habitat for these animals such as Forest Red Gum (Eucalyptus tereticornis).

Koalas in adjacent vegetation

Greenfleet’s revegetation has been strategically designed to link known populations of koalas on the floodplain of Franklin Vale Creek to populations of the Little Liverpool Range to the west. The project also integrates road safety with revegetation design to direct koalas to cross under the road safely.

Additional to koalas, as the forest at Hiddenvale becomes more established, it will also provide habitat for Sugar Gliders and other small marsupials. 

Future-proofing the reforestation

As well as being an important project in the establishment of koala habitat, Hiddenvale is also home to a climate provenance study conducted by the University of Queensland. 

The principal aims of this experiment are to improve understanding for how diversity and composition of woodland restoration efforts influence tree survival and growth. Additionally, it will improve researcher’s understanding of how local and non-local dry provenance ecotypes perform under future climatic conditions. 

The experiment further aims to explore the potentially positive effects of soil inocula and biosolids on the survival and growth of woodland plantings. This study will build on Greenfleet’s collaborative climate provenance restoration work already completed with Bush Heritage Australia at Nardoo Hills in Central Victoria. 

All of Greenfleet’s work is vital in fighting the impacts of climate change but research like this is important as we face the realities of a changing climate.

Climate action

The forest planted at Hiddenvale is legally protected for 100 years, allowing it to take long-term and sustainable climate action. Over its lifetime, it will capture more than 20,000 tonnes of CO2-e from the atmosphere - equivalent to the emissions from 4,650 cars in Australia each year.