Second WOMADelaide Forest planned for Kangaroo Island

The success of WOMADelaide Forest, a forest created to offset the environmental footprint of the annual music festival through a partnership between Greening Australia and the WOMADelaide Foundation, will soon see a second created on Kangaroo Island.

Greening Australia has been supporting WOMADelaide for over 12 years through biodiverse tree plantings which have established the flourishing WOMADelaide Forest in regional South Australia, near the Coorong and Lower Lakes.

More than 70,000 native trees and shrubs have been already been planted, removing tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent from the atmosphere. It has been established that over the 100 year lifecycle of the forest, this specific bushland will remove from the atmosphere more than 16,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

This year a second WOMADelaide forest will be grown on Kangaroo Island to reinstate a Sheoak grove for the rare Glossy Black Cockatoos, providing habitat and nesting opportunities.

In addition, the site will help to conserve the rare endemic Narrow Leaf Mallee vegetation community – a native bushland found nowhere else on earth.

“The Kangaroo Island WOMADelaide Forest will continue our commitment to improving biodiversity outcomes while removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.” Greening Australia’s Director National Programs & Science Todd Berkinshaw said.

“This partnership promotes the significant contribution that community and corporates can make to drive investment into conservation outcomes for rare and threatened Australian native species” Todd said.

“The festival emissions report conducted annually determines the total carbon dioxide generated through the entire event chain including air travel, accommodation, electricity consumption, waste, paper & plastic materials, consumables and transport including all staging and technical equipment transported for use at the four-day event.”

WOMADelaide Director, Ian Scobie AM, said that the festival is continuously pursuing new and innovative ways to reduce and offset the environmental impact of staging the event.

“Every year we track, monitor and record all data on the festival’s emissions in an effort to minimise our carbon footprint, and through the Greening Australia WOMADelaide Forest we are able to make a positive contribution to natural habitats at the same time” said Mr Scobie

“We are excited about the new Kangaroo Island site as a home for the second WOMADelaide Forest and look forward to being able to further reduce our environmental footprint through this wonderful partnership with Greening Australia and both organisations are committed to ensure more carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere than is generated by each festival.”

CEO of Greening Australia, Brendan Foran, with WOMADelaide’s Ian Scobie.