HOPE ON THE HORIZON FOR KI
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eanette Gellard, President of the Trees For Life Board, has lived on Kangaroo Island for 25 years. Last summer’s bushfires devastated the unique landscape she and many others call home, presenting massive challenges for Kangaroo Island’s tightknit community. Several months into the recovery effort, and with many years still to go, we’re witnessing the profound resilience of fire-affected communities on Kangaroo Island and across SA. Importantly, we’re also seeing the incredible healing capacity of nature. We spoke to Jeanette about her life and experiences on this iconic and beautiful South Australian island. TOP LEFT: Seed Bank Manager Daniel with the volunteer grown seedlings off to KI. TOP RIGHT: President
Jeanette Gellard (left) hosted the KI seedling giveaway from her house in Kingscote. Pictured with Maren Norris (right) from Islander Estate Vineyards.
Nature-lovers are drawn to the island and it’s certainly appreciated on a national scale. What’s so unique about the landscapes there? Significant areas of intact native vegetation; incredible levels of roadside vegetation; high levels of biodiversity and high-functioning ecosytems; variety of wildlife that is easy to observe – kangaroos, goannas, echidnas, wallabies, possums, birdlife; marine environments and beautiful white sandy beaches (that are not crowded!); soaring cliff coastlines; and overall incredible diversity in land and seascapes. Have you had any stand-out experiences with KI’s special flora and fauna? Echidnas frequent our property – the little earthmovers dig up the front grassed area of our house! Glossy black-cockatoos just started to move into some feeding habitat at the end or our road. Some early morning drives we encounter four to six birds feeding by the roadside. Do you remember the moment you knew the island was in real danger from the fires this past summer? Our property came under threat on the 20th of December. At that point I thought it was going to be a ‘typical’ campaign fire situation – we had two main fires burning. On Friday 3rd of January I had travelled up to Adelaide in the morning and started getting messages about the fire activity and behaviour in the afternoon. By that evening I was really concerned and cancelled my Adelaide plans and returned home on the Saturday morning.
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