Founding member of Golden Point Landcare Group, Marie Jones, has been awarded the prestigious Joan Kirner Landcare Award.
Marie was one of several local residents recognised for their contributions maintaining and restoring the natural environment at the 2023-2024 Victorian Landcare Awards at Marvel Stadium on July 18.
The Joan Kirner Landcare Award honours a long-term landcarer in Victoria who has forged partnerships and inspired, encouraged and mentored others to undertake on-ground action.
Marie has clocked up 30 years with the local group, as well as stints on the North Central Catchment Management Board and Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forest.
The Chewton resident was also instrumental in the creation of Connecting Country (Mount Alexander Region) Inc, a community conservation organisation driving landscape-scale restoration in the region and operating as a landcare network for 30 volunteer group.
Through her role with Golden Point Landcare Group, Marie has contributed to the planting of more than 15,000 indigenous plants in the disturbed ‘upside down’ gold-mining country, and through her work with Connecting Country has helped successfully protect, restore and enhance more than 13,000 hectares of the region’s landscape.
Marie is also a founding member of the Post Office Hill Action Group, which was granted the right to manage a 22.5 hectare site at Chewton as a bushland reserve.
Marie said she knew nothing about the environment when she first arrived in the local region.
“I’m certainly not a botanist, but it was clear the environment needed help, and I was willing to learn. My career in teaching gave me a social conscience and skills at organising and multi-tasking,” Marie said.
“Getting people together to do something for the environment is so positive. It’s a way of creating community. Landcare is such fun, and you meet fantastic people. The first time someone called me a greenie I was taken aback, but now I wear that hat with pride.”
Marie was especially honoured to be nominated for the Joan Kirner Landcare Award as she was Joan’s neighbour in Williamstown for many years.
“I remember her fondly,” Marie said. “Joan was a very compassionate woman.”
JUNIOR LANDCARE AWARD
Chewton teen and fellow Post Office Hill Action Group member, Tavish Bloom, was also awarded the Woolworths Junior Landcare Award.
The 13-year-old, who lives next to the Post Office Hill Reserve, has been a member of the local group for two years and was proud to be part of a project installing and monitoring 28 nesting boxes in the reserve.
Among their successes are a female brush-tailed phascogale using one of the boxes to successfully raise eight joeys last summer.
Tavish said the shy, nocturnal rat-sized marsupials were his favourite local animal, “because I have them in the bush behind my house and I enjoy watching them go about their lives”.
Tavish has also been involved with community conservation groups such as BirdLife Castlemaine and Connecting Country’s Woodland Bird Monitoring Project.
He is also a keen participant in his school’s ResourceSmart program and Eco Club at the Castlemaine Steiner School and Kindergarten.
In fact, last month his school was awarded the ‘Student Action Team of the Year (Primary)’ at the annual Sustainability Victoria ResourceSmart School Awards.
“I have been interested in wildlife and the environment for pretty much my whole life, but I started getting really interested when I was 10,” Tavish said.
“I find birds interesting because there are so many different species – their behaviours, habitats, colours – and because they’re awesome. I think kids with an interest in the environment should not hesitate to get out there in the bush and join their local landcare group, so we can act and help the world.”
Tavish now goes on to represent Victoria in the National Landcare Awards later this year.
OTHER SPECIAL
ACHIEVEMENTS
Newham’s Penny Roberts was highly commended in the Joan Kirner award category.
Penny has been involved with with Newham and District Landcare Group since its inception in 2004 and served as president for more than seven years.
She is known fondly among the group as ‘a force of nature’ due to her commitment, energy and ability to get landcare projects done.
Penny has helped increase participation on many projects and has seen the group grow from 40 to 100 families over the years.
She has also been a stalwart of the group’s roadside biodiversity projects and the ambitious Cobaw Biolink.
Woodend Landcare’s Nicole Middleton and Malmsbury’s John Walter were two of five commended in the Joan Kirner category.
Other award winners or highly commended from central Victorian region were: Newham Primary School, which was highly commended in the Australian Government Community Partnerships Landcare Award, Annalise Varner from Bendigo for the inaugural Horrie Poussard Prize and the Mount Alexander Regenerative Agriculture Group commended in the Australian Government Sustainable Agriculture Landcare Award category.
Pictured are Mount Alexander Regenerative Agriculture Group’s Deane Belfield, Newham Primary School students, Penny Roberts and Nicole Middleton.
