Australian couple bought a cattle farm and planted 34,000 trees. Years later, koalas and wildlife are returning

In 2020, an Australian couple bought a run-down cattle property and decided to do something with it that most farmers wouldn't: give it back to the forest.

Brett and Lisa Vercoe picked up a 30-hectare block called Narlu, tucked inland from Coffs Harbour in New South Wales, on land that belongs to Gumbaynggirr Country. Like most cattle farms in the region, Narlu had been cleared decades ago, its native cover stripped away for grazing. But long before the cattle arrived, this stretch of land held something far rarer, Lowland Subtropical Rainforest, an endangered ecological community, along with patches of wet and dry sclerophyll forest. The Vercoes weren't interested in running the property the conventional way. They wanted to bring back what had been cleared.