Environment champions hailed

By Dion Teasdale
TWO Yarra Valley champions of the environment have won top honours in the 2006 Regional Landcare Awards and earned high praise from the Governor of Victoria.
Volunteer group, Friends of the Helmeted Honeyeater, and Aboriginal school, Worawa College, have been recognised for saving endangered wildlife and sustainable land management.
Friends of the Helmeted Honeyeater, a group of 200 volunteers based in Yellingbo, have received the 2006 Caring for Nature Award as part of the Regional Landcare Awards.
The group has been working since 1989 to save Victoria’s critically endangered state bird emblem, the Helmeted Honeyeater, in the Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve.
Governor of Victoria, Professor David de Krester sang the praises of the volunteers who have revegetated 15 hectares of forest, started their own nursery and increased the Helmeted Honeyeater population from 50 to 80.
“This wonderful group of volunteers has been working for the last 17 years to save our state emblem by creating habitat, connecting reserves and raising awareness of the plight of the Honeyeater,” he said.
Bob Anderson, president of The Friends of the Helmeted Honeyeater, said the group was thrilled to receive the award.
“This award recognises the hard work of all our volunteers and reinforces that we are out there doing the best we can with the resources we have,” he said.
Meanwhile, Worawa College in Healesville, Victoria’s only independent Aboriginal school has been presented with the Indigenous Community Caring for Land award.
The college, which is situated on 65 hectares of land that was part of the Coranderrk Aboriginal Station, won for its sustainable land use, cultural development, improved habitat and biodiversity work.
David Buntie, Regional Landcare Awards representative, said the college received the award for reconnecting indigenous students with the Aboriginal tradition of caring for the land.
He said key features of the school’s work include developing a wetland with a Dreaming Trail and a Bush Tucker Garden as a training ground for students to learn about and use local flora.
“The management plan also involves a 39 hectare conservation area to allow for corridors of native vegetation to be established, linking the Yarra River and potentially Healesville Sanctuary to the Coranderrk bush land,” Mr Buntie said.
By winning regional awards, both Worawa College and The Friends of the Helmeted Honeyeater have qualified for the Victorian Landcare Awards in 2007.