Jarrod Conroy and Dave Douglas from Yu-Gen Power are huge believers in giving back to the community and as such are planting one tree for every 1 kWh renewable energy system installed. Yu-Gen Power specialises in the installation of RENEWABLE Energy Technologies such as SOLAR and WIND, as well as  BATTERY storage technology. Win/win on all accounts. Last year we planted 700 at the Pentland Hills (Vic) on Yu-Gen’s behalf and now we have another 300 from this generous company. Yu-Gen trees went to Peter and Samantha Harbecke from Hills ‘n’ Hollows 400 km west of Brisbane in Queensland. Sam writes …

Over a hundred years ago, our 250 acre property at Chinchilla Queensland was dense bush-land, however in the early 1900s when the area was settled by Europeans, they strip-cleared thousands of acres to make way for open agriculture or cattle and sheep grazing. This removed vital vegetation. About fifty years ago, large portions of the original Wieambilla Station (the area where our property is located), were subdivided and allowed to regrow. However, in December 2002, a combination of poor weather conditions and poor fire-safety procedures, resulted in thousands of acres being burnt in the most devastating bush-fire to ever affect the area. This fire destroyed everything.

What has grown back is what is known as ‘fire-weeds’, bushes and trees that thrive in the ashen rich soil after a major bush-fire. When we bought our property in 2008, we noticed that only about fifty acres at the top end of our property had been damaged in the fire. Thankfully this leaves a large portion of the property still able to continue in it’s natural regeneration process after the years of strip-clearing. However, in the top fifty acres, a lot of work was (and still is) needed to return it to the wonderful forest environment of yester-year. We commenced by carefully removing a large portion of the ‘fireweed’, being sure to save as many of the Cyprus, Eucalyptus and Ironbark as possible. This still left us with acres of bare earth, which grew nothing more than the dreaded spear-grass.

It took us 4 days of planting, mulching and watering to get all 300 trees planted. It then took another day to protect a few of them from the wildlife and chickens. Each day, the children and Sam take buckets and water all of the plants from our little ‘pond’. The process takes a few hours!! But it is worth it. Three weeks down the road and there are so many new shoots.

Our land is our future, and we need to do everything we can to not only protect it, but to make it better and more abundant for both us and the wildlife around us. Thank you Colleen and Yu-Gen Power.

Indeed, a huge thank you to Dave and Jarrod. Great to see your trees going to such a wonderful sustainable family who are trying to bring back our original native environment that was all but destroyed by  early farming practices. Slàinte (gallic for cheers) – Colleen