Award Winners Announced

An award for a school that has undertaken environmental programs or activities that have successfully enhanced students understanding and awareness of environmental issues.

In 2008 the School’s environmental activities have enjoyed the support of their enthusiastic new principal. The School has redesigned its gardens along permaculture principles, installed water reducing toilets and rainwater tanks, conducted energy audits, and reintroduced "Zero-Waste" lunchboxes. The School has reduced its carbon footprint by choosing not to participate in interschool activities which requiring bus trips, and instead offers fun activities on Friday afternoons. It participates in the Reef Guardian program, makes paper bricks for the Habitat for Humanity project, and is the first in the region to be registered as a solar school.

The School had adopted the innovative Future Earth philosophy where sustainable living is something that students do, rather than learn. Students have planned and grown a community permaculture garden, and produced digital animations to help understand global warming. It has developed a sustainability action plan, constructed a mud brick classroom and outdoor cob oven, and organised the inaugural Funky Futures Festival which incorporates hands on workshops.

Kalkie is a Reef Guardian school and has stencilled all of the nearby drains that lead to the reef with eye catching messages. It conserves power through the “Go Green! Flick the Switch” campaign, collects rubbish at the school and on beach excursions, has designed a compost garden with down pipes from guttering of rooves, and tiled a dusty outdoor area with recycled tiles. Students have also saved water by installing “Aquaclics on taps throughout the school.

As the Schools grounds consist of remnant wallum vegetation, its focus is not on repair the environment, but on planning and preservation, so these natural assets are sustainably managed . In 2008 the school has undertaken two major environmental projects. The Bush Learning project includes establishing a walking trail and interpretive signage, and promotes indigenous local knowledge. The Melaleuca Wetland Conservation project involves the installation of two 20,000 gallon underground water tanks to harvest rain water and reduce concentrated flow into the wetlands. It includes weed removal, revegetation with local wetland species. The School has also registered as a Land For Wildlife property.

This Group conducts and manages stand alone projects and engage in joint ventures, achieving long term ecological benefits. It engages the community, Local, State and Federal government departments and other agencies It recognizes the need to deliver outcomes based on the four pillars of sustainability; economic sustainability, ecological sustainability, social sustainability and cultural sustainability.

Since its inception in 1992, the Group has undertaken on-ground works to the value of more than $530,000, including more than 100 projects. These have included fencing off and revegetating many kilometres of stream, providing offstream watering systems, stream crossings and hardened laneways, all of which ensure that stock stay out of stream beds, thus protecting the bed, banks, riparian habitat and stream health in general, as well as improving water quality.

The success of the Group can be attributed to the professionalism and commitment of the staff and committee; and the contribution of many in the community, including volunteer committee members, other like-minded groups, landowners who have taken part in the projects, local government officers and politicians.

The Foundation has trained a local indigenous workforce in Best Management Practices for forestry, re-vegetation, propagation and general land management. They successfully established 2.5ha of native trees, a small bush tucker plantation, re-vegetated one hectare of the riparian zone of Barambah Creek and fenced sensitive areas on the property. It resulted in local Indigenous people obtaining expertise to secure further employment and advancement opportunities.

Over the past 18 months the Association has helped to identify and highlight areas of concern in the Burnett Catchment. It has supported the “Better Burnett” pilot program with over 40 on ground projects. It has developed a number of new ways to work with landowners, has produced video case studies, Better Burnett web page and utilising the latest internet technology “feed burner”. It believes in delivering projects that enrich the catchment for current an future generations.

This award is in recognition of an organization that has implemented a project that has achieved outstanding on-ground outcomes; has been well managed and reported; and successfully communicated to the community.

The Integrated NRM project supported landholders, community groups, schools, Local Governments and industry. Onground works included biodiversity protection and enhancement, threaten species protection, environmental weed control, riparian protection, and grazing land management. Landholders across the six shires where encouraged to apply for small grant funds, and 100% of the works were completed. The project has lead to the development of good partnerships for future programs.

Since the inception of Better Burnett in 2007, approximately 34,00ha of grazing land has been enhanced, 68 kms of stream banks have been improved and 101 watering points have been installed in the Burnett Catchment region. Most projects undertaken by landholders were well managed and were completed on time and on budget. With direct active links from their website, the Association has effectively communicated to the public the successful outcomes of the projects.

The project aimed to improve the sustainability of farming systems. The Group held 7 extremely successful field days covering topics such as Soil Health, Drought – a biological approach, Grazing Land Management, Vegetation Management, Keyline Farming, On Farm Composting, Farming in the Future and Soil Analysis . Nearly 600 farmers attend the workshops, proving their interest in relevant information and options on how to improve the long term sustainability of their businesses, and the natural resources of their land, in a practical setting.

Over the past 12 months, Growcom has assisted land holders to implement more sustainable farming practices by delivering financial incentive schemes to construct sediment traps, re-vegetate saline effected land, use crop mulch, adopt more efficient systems for distribution of water and fertilizer, and trial organic fertilizer in crop production. This has led to reduced sediment and potentially fertilizers and chemicals reaching our regions waterways, lower rates of chemical fertilizers being used, a reduction in the loss of productive top soil and better utilization of our limited water resource.

An award to an individual who has implemented successful land & water management practices in conjunction with a property management plan. Activities such as implementation of a weed and pest management plan, the control of broadscale weeds, improved sustainable farming practices are also eligible for this award.

Adrian is the General Manager of Hinkler Park Macadamia Farm He is an industry leader in innovation and natural resource management practices. He has recently been involved with the "Friends of Splitters Creek" and Landcare in the revegatation of the creek line, introduction of the owl boxes to the region, the Area Wide Integrated Pest management project, and has been a driving force in both AgSip 05 and AgSip 16 projects.

Noel Corbett is a proactive landholder implementing new innovative farming techniques to combat localised salinity on his property, located in the Crawford area. He has established trials of “old man saltbush” and has a saltbush propagation program. He successfully fattens large cattle uses the saltbush as part of his operation. His on-going commitment and enthusiasm has been shared with the community as he has hosted several field days, shared his project results with other landholders in the Gordonbrook Catchment.

Michael and Lorraine are proactive landholders implementing onground sustainable land management practices to address salinity, manage pastures and natural resource assets to assist with their successful cattle enterprise. They have used funding to assist in the development of cell grazing centres, farm forestry plantations in recharge areas, established saltbush and salt tolerant grasses in salt scalds, contour bank stablisation, soil and gully erosion. Langleys are local rural leaders and highly committed to ensuring their efforts are benefiting the land for the future.

Dean & Tracy always endeavour to consider all aspects of their business and farm when researching and implementing a new project. They have taken a run down lucerne farm and improved production whilst always keeping in mind the importance of the footprint that they are leaving behind and the environment surrounding them. They have conducted a subsurface drip irrigation project, used composting instead of Urea based fertiliser, split paddocks and using rotational grazing to improve land condition and productivity, fenced off riparian areas and trialled cats claw creeper bug along creek banks. As land managers they are constantly looking for a better and more environmentally friendly way to run their business whilst also improving production.

An award for an individual who has contributed to the development of other professionals, youth, and/or the community, in the field of natural resource management.

Peter works for the horticulture industry and is behind a project to demonstrate significant water savings. This is done through a schools competition, water audits and seminars designed to raise awareness, change behaviour and communicate the benefits to the community. Peter has single-handedly steered the project and kept interested parties and co-operators informed and motivated. He been able to keep people focused on the issues over a relatively long period and finished the project with a great result, both in water and money savings.

Dean has been a great mentor and role model for the staff working at the Burnett Catchment Care Association. He supports their professional development by encouraging them to think about the project at hand, what tools they could use and what opportunities they could make. He is not critical of staff, but encourages them to be realistic.

Ashley has recently stimulated and challenged 2 post doctoral students to successfully complete research projects. These involved shorebird conservation, threatened species management, estuary rehabilitation and coral reef community mapping. In most of his projects, local communities were involved in restoration and conservation practices, leading to fruitful interactive communication and cooperation. Ashley has been a stimulating source of creativity, keeping his staff and local communities in touch with “hands on” projects and resource management.

Judith has a strong commitment to the environment and community. Judith has mentored professionals at all levels of government from technical staff through to elected members and community leaders. Judith guides her colleagues in a gentle and confident manner, ensuring they have a real understanding of what the future goals of natural resource management should be. She has managed to achieve outstanding results by inducting and mentoring new recruits, and continues to mentor and share her knowledge with them throughout the life of a project.

In recognition of an individual who has made a significant contribution as a volunteer in the undertaking of natural resource management related activities.

Robyn Bailey Robyn expressed an interest in learning about Seagrass Watch in late 2004, when the program in the Great Sandy Strait was about to collapse. By March, 2005, showing remarkable enthusiasm she was able to identify grasses, assess percentage cover and record data. She took it upon herself to formulate a program for monitoring at eighteen sites, and with the help (and boat) of husband Paul made Reef Islands and Brown's Gutter accessible, also Kauri Creek and Boonooroo sites.

In addition to the field work, she also collates the data collected, titles and burns to disc all photographs taken, all this with a full time job and two school children.

Diane has been volunteering with the Environmental Protection Agency since 2004. She is an outstanding and enthusiastic volunteer who dedicates many hours working for turtle and marine conservation, both during and outside of the turtle breeding season. She is a Beach Assistant at the Mon Repos Conservation Park Turtle Information Centre, greeting, serving and educating the tourist groups, including kid’s activities, turtle research and guiding of groups while on the beach. She also works on nightly basis at the Oaks Beach, carrying out research on both nesting and hatchling turtles and also talks to visitors to this beach.

Jim and Annie both work full time for Queensland Government. In their spare time they work on the Lady Musgrave Island Turtle Monitoring project, part of the Queensland Turtle Conservation Project. Whilst at Lady Musgrave they are also volunteer Campground Hosts. Many weekends, weeknights, and his annual leave are consumed with some component of the monitoring project. Whether it’s ‘on-site’ monitoring, data management, writing reports, organising volunteers, equipment maintenance, or managing funding, their “hobby” has over the years, developed into almost a second full time job.

Jenny is the treasurer of the Cooloola Coastcare Association. Jenny has financially managed 11 funded projects since December 2006, while managing the salaries, superannuation, workcover of one permanent part-time project coordinator and over six casual project officers and labourers. In dollar terms this has amounted to over $223,000. Jenny is also a grandmother and the treasurer of the schools P&C.

Recognition for an individual who has achieved outstanding on-ground outcomes that have greatly improved or protected significant ecological areas and/or communities. Activities such as the protection of significant flora and fauna species, weed control in areas of biodiversity significance, and riparian restoration activities are also eligible for this award.

Michael Johnson is determined to remove cat's claw vine from old growth rainforest trees along the banks of the Kolan River at Smith's Crossing. He is restoring the area to how he remembers it in his childhood.. With loppers, secateurs, crowbar and chemical bottle on hand, Michael has worked tirelessly for over two years because he believes the big old trees deserve better and so does the wildlife that is slowly starting to return now that the trees can flower and set fruit.

Several years, the family bought several adjoining blocks of land in the Mothar Mountain area years ago. They are now in the process of establishing a Nature Refuge on about 100 acres of old growth vineforest. They have made up a detailed and complex property management plan, recognizing different forest types and condition and areas to be protected. The family have been a source of inspiration for all the landholders in the Conservation Partnerships Program through their efforts and enthusiasm.