26-06-2004

Land & Water Australia has once again embarked on its annual search for heroes of the landscape, people who are working long and hard to protect and improve our natural resources.

According to Chair of Land & Water Australia Bobbie Brazil, the Community Fellowship Program is designed to help these inspirational people share their stories, to celebrate their achievements and to help build their support networks.The Program, now in its fourth year, provides grants of up to $15,000 to help people who have an outstanding track record in managing land, water and vegetation, or in mobilising the community, to tell their stories to inspire other people. Past Fellows have produced websites, written books, created CD-ROMs, spoken at conferences, workshops and seminars, and even written and performed songs.

'This is a non-academic award which recognises that regular people, farmers, landcare workers and community volunteers, achieve extraordinary things through patience, practice and hard work,' Mrs Brazil said.

'Driven by the strength of their convictions and sometimes at odds with the wisdom of the day, to date often their only reward has been the satisfaction of a job well done.

'Undoubtedly, time will reveal just what a debt we owe to these fantastic people who show us that individuals can make a difference.'

In previous years the Community Fellowships Program has uncovered some incredible visionaries such as John Ive and family, whose work on their New South Wales Southern Tablelands grazing property was recently recognised with honours in two categories at the United Nations World Environment Day Awards. The Ive family is also in the running for a national Landcare Award later this year, and they have recently been nominated for the Weekly Times Farmer of the Year Award.

Past recipients have included:

• (2003) Hugo Spooner who believes that achieving a balance between protecting sensitive natural landscapes and maintaining a profitable grazing enterprise is not an impossible dream, and he is producing a booklet to detail his experiences and methods as a guide for other graziers. The drought of 1986 degraded much of the fragile country of 'Avocet', a 4500 hectare property in the Central Highlands, but made Hugo determined to seek a new approach in order to achieve sustainable beef production. 'We decreased our herd by 30% and were amazed to discover that after several years our income had not decreased' he said. Since then Hugo and family have voluntarily declared part of the property a Nature Refuge, fenced off a major waterway and established a downstream water monitoring site, and achieved Quality Assurance accreditation under the Cattlecare program.
• (2003) Pastoralist Bob Morrish lives on Kyabra Creek, near Windorah on the Cooper Creek floodplain and is Chairman of the Cooper Creek Protection Group. Through their joint efforts, the Group secured an ecologically sound outcome for the management of the Cooper's water resources. Bob will use his Land & Water Australia Community Fellowship to travel throughout the Gulf region to share his knowledge with communities and encourage them to participate in the water resource planning process currently being undertaken by the Queensland government.
• (2002) Eric Fisher whose family has been farming 'Wilgara', a cattle grazing property in the heart of the Macquarie Marshes in New South Wales since 1909. One of the first private landholders in Australia to list part of their property as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention, the Fellowship enabled Eric to tell his story about getting the balance between cattle and conservation to other landholders.
• (2002) Charles Sturt University lecturer Yalmambirra was awarded a Fellowship to give a series of personal presentations based on his experiences rehabilitating and revegetating the 45-hectare Mungabareena Reserve near Albury in Southern New South Wales. With the support of the Wiradjuri Elders he applied for and received a grant from the Natural Heritage Trust to undertake the project. While the community was unsympathetic and the project disrupted by vandals and Mother Nature, Yalmambirra kept working to achieve his goals. Through the Community Fellowship grant he aimed to enlighten people about the pitfalls of applying for funding, what to do with funding once it comes through, community attitudes to environmental projects and indigenous people and their ties to the land.
• (2001) For more than four years Kate Andrews worked in one of the most isolated parts of Australia with graziers, Indigenous communities, tourism operators, government and conservationists to try to reach agreement on how to better manage the vast Lake Eyre Basin. What began as a challenge resulted in the creation of the Lake Eyre Basin Coordinating Group and the development of a Basin-wide strategy culminating in the Heads of Agreement between the South Australian, Queensland and Commonwealth Governments. The Fellowship allowed Kate to capture her experiences and distil key insights that will be valuable for landcare and catchment groups throughout Australia.

Land & Water Australia's Community Fellowships were established in 2001 with support from a private philanthropist and are valued at between $2,000 and $15,000. They aim to provide inspirational people with the opportunity to share their practical natural resource management skills. The Fellowships are non-academic awards to enable winners to share an experience through writing, travel, presentations and other forms of communication.

Applications for the 2004 Community Fellowships close on July 9 2004.

For more information visit www.lwa.gov.au, send an email to Land&WaterAustralia@lwa.gov.au or contact Samantha Burt on 02 6263 6026.

ENDS

Media enquiries: Media Officer, Land & Water Australia, 02 6263 6000