Australian Koala Foundation
Australian non-profit group dedicated to koala protection
The Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) is an Australian charity created in 1986, focused on Koala conservation dedicated to the effective management and conservation of the koala and its habitat. Its flagship projects are the Koala Habitat Atlas, the Koala Kiss project to link Koala habitat areas, and lobbying for legislative change
History
The Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) is a registered Australian charity established in 1986 by Steve Brown, Barry Scott, Bob Gibson, Dr. John Woolcock, Dr. Russ Dickens, and others. Its initial aim was finding a cure for Koala Chlamydia (an often deadly infectious disease in Koalas caused by Chlamydia pecorum) which was initially seen as the major threat. Within a few years, the AKF changed direction of the AKF moved towards addressing the loss of habitat and reversing it. “The koala suffers not only the ravages of habitat destruction, disease, drought and bushfires, but from humans who allow their dogs to attack, their cars to speed and kill them on the roads and also, unfortunately, public apathy”
Barry Scott OAM In 1988, Deborah Tabart joined the AKF, and later became its CEO. She is the author of AKF published "The Koala Manifesto" (2021) which calls for ten key actions to do with the Koala address koala protection, making decisions based on the Koala Habitat Atlas, banning native logging, a bill of rights for water, and a Royal commission into the environment.
The AKF's 2016 and 2019 claim that koalas were “functionally extinct” , and numbered “as low as 80,000” was rejected by the Federal Threatened Species Scientific Committee and peer-reviewed population models, which estimate 320,000–450,000 animals nationally.
The 2019–20 Australian bushfire season had a devastating impact on koala habitat and populations.
In 2023–2024 two board members resigned
Koala Habitat Atlas
The Koala Habitat Atlas (KHA) is the Australian Koala Foundation's flagship mapping program and provides GIS information on a tree by tree basis the public, government, and courts so that koala habitat can be identified and protected.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Australian Koala Foundation” is australian non-profit group dedicated to koala protection. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Australian, Koala and Foundation, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4824359. VIAF identifies the subject as 130998690. The Library of Congress control number is no2005012800. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1986, 1988, 2021 and 2016.
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This entry incorporates text from “Australian Koala Foundation” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.