A GALASHIELS Brownie has taken it upon herself to help the fight against the wildfires in Australia.

Nadia Moriss, who will be nine next month, spent last Sunday (January 12) taking part in a sponsored walk up the Three Brethren with her brother, Milosz, aged 10, and friends for the wildlife charity, WWF UK.

On the Borders hill walk, Nadia was also joined by some furrier friends.

With her favourite animal being the koala, it seemed fitting that Nadia brought a selection of koala soft toys with her for the sponsored walk.

Nadia told us: "I wanted to raise money for Australian wildlife’s to help save koalas. They are my favourite animals and I wanted to go and see them in wild when I grow up.

"If people won't help them now they’ll be extinct by the time I’m big enough to go there. The animals don’t know what to do.

"They can’t go on a plane and run away like people and they don’t know about the rest of the world. That’s all they’ve got.

"Once at school’s assembly a visitor came to see us. He said we should look after our environment and our whole planet. He told us that koalas are dying out and one kind of rhino is already extinct. It made me feel sad."

The money raised through the Go Fund Me page set up by Nadia's mum Edyta, will go straight to the UK branch of the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF).

So far, Nadia has surpassed her £50 goal and has raised an impressive total of £90 from her Three Brethren walk (correct on day of publication).

WWF have joined other campaigners, volunteers and supporters to combat the damaging wildfires which have scorched an estimated 10 million hectares (15.6 million acres) of Australian bush, forests and parks.

Donations to WWF (which will be passed on to the charity's branch in Australia) will help provide emergency care for injured wildlife, plant the first 10,000 trees once the fires have ceased to help rehome koalas, support the response, recovery and restoration teams in any way needed and to continue their work pressuring the government to strengthen laws again the excessive clearing of trees which helps wildfires to spread.

Nadia would like to do another sponsored walk to keep raising money for her favourite koalas and wants people to keep donating what they can to help.

She added: " People should keep donating so we could save what’s left of the wildlife. They need food because their trees are not there anymore. And they also need to be kept in special hospitals and that costs too."

To donate to Nadia's fundraiser, visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/nadias-koalas-rescue

And for more information on the work that WWF does, including their efforts in Australia go to https://support.wwf.org.uk