THE survival stories of seven koalas will be shown to West Aussie audiences in an upcoming documentary co-directed and produced by Gregory Miller and Georgia Wallace-Crabbe. 

The cuddly diplomats of Australian wildlife are facing extinction on the east coast due to urban expansion and warmer temperatures pushing them out of their habitat and into urban areas where they face being attacked by dogs or run over. 

Mr Miller said they wanted to discover why an affluent country was neglecting its most iconic resident, so they followed koalas for three years while hunting down what research they could find to make The Koalas. 

• Nowhere to go: A mother koala and her joey at a wildlife rescue shelter after their home was cleared.

Koalas in each of the locations they visited faced a range of challenges, which Mr Miller says “tells a number of stories that illustrates what’s wrong”.

He says current laws are too weak or ineffective to protect koalas from annihilation.

Although the documentary presents a dire situation, Mr Miller believes it’s not completely hopeless yet.

”It can be turned around,” he says optimistically.

The duo believe the documentary will highlight an important “Australian issue” and hope it will encourage audiences to take action and put pressure on regulatory authorities to put more effort into saving the marsupials.

“Industrial work needs to take into consideration how their work will affect the environment they are working on,” Mr Miller told the Herald.

The pair said they showed the documentary to author and environmental activist Tim Winton and with his encouragement decided to screen the documentary in Fremantle.

“You’ll be charmed. You’ll be dismayed. And then I bet you’ll be as angry as hell at what’s being done to koalas in your name and in your own lifetime,” Winton wrote about The Koalas.

The Koalas will be screening at LunaSX Fremantle on June 30

by SIENNA DALY