Community champions: Top honours to Marie and Tavish at Landcare Awards
Posted on 24 July, 2024 by Ivan
Local community champions Marie Jones and Tavish Bloom were awarded top honours at the recent Victorian Landcare Awards, highlighting the amazing passion and dedication in the central Victorian Landcare movement. We are very proud of both Marie and Tavish, who have shown countless hours of commitment and hard work in restoring our ‘upside down’ landscapes of the Mount Alexander region. Please raise a glass to toast our well-deserved awardees!
Marie Jones: Joan Kirner Landcare Award
Marie was a founding member of Golden Point Landcare Group and 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 (FOBIF). She is currently the president of FOBIF, which runs monthly walks, organises photographic exhibitions, and develops educational materials to promote and advocate for the Box-Ironbark Forests of the region. Marie was a founding member of Connecting Country over 25 years ago and continues strong involvement as Secretary on the Committee of Management.
Marie Jones collecting seed. Photo by John Ellis.
Marie has worked tirelessly to ensure that Connecting Country is successful, serving for many years as secretary or president and being involved in multiple sub-committees. Under Marie’s guidance, the network has successfully protected, restored, and enhanced over 15,000 hectares of the region’s landscape.
Director of Connecting Country, Lori Arthur, said ‘We love the gentle way Marie brings our community together and raises awareness of the issues facing our biodiversity and wildlife. I enjoy working with Marie, learning from her wisdom, compassion and kindness through the Landcare movement’.
Marie features on Connecting Country’s Landcare promotion video below, where she is quoted as saying ‘Landcare is everybody’s, and it is our responsibility to look after our local landscapes. It is an honour to volunteer in our community and contribute towards these things’. Well done Marie, very much deserved!
Tavish Bloom: Woolworths Junior Landcare Award
Tavish is an inspiration to the next generation of Landcarers in our region, and at the ripe age of 13 years old, has an enviable track record and passion for our landscape and wildlife. He lives next to the Post Office Hill Reserve at Chewton and has been part of a project installing and monitoring 28 nesting boxes in the Central Victorian reserve as a member of the Post Office Hill Action Group. This project has given Tavish a terrific platform to learn more about our marsupials and birds that call the nest boxes home and has inspired him to tell his story to other young Landcarers and school friends.
Tavish interviewed by Dr Ann Jones at Resource Smart Awards 2023. Photo by Castlemaine Steiner School.
The nest boxes have housed several occupants, including a female Brush-tailed Phascogale using one of the boxes to successfully raise eight joeys last summer. Nest boxes are vital for providing refuge for threatened species in the absence of their usual habitat, such as hollows in large old trees. Tavish has enjoyed the interactions and sharing of the reserve with the Brush-tailed Phascogale, which has enabled him to learn more about the threatened species and ensure they have the habitat to thrive in the future.
As a young child, he spent countless hours observing and recording flora and fauna in the reserve and two years ago joined the Post Office Hill Action Group (POHAG), which cares for the reserve. This reserve was turned upside down during the gold rush in the mid-1800s and then was later used as a rubbish dump and tip for the region. Tavish is inspired to continue restoring the degraded landscape with mid-storey shrubs and nest boxes, which will enable woodland birds and marsupials to thrive in their once-denuded landscape.
Tavish with Costa Georgiadis at the Victorian Landcare Awards. Photo by Joel Bloom.
Well done Tavish, we hope you continue the journey with your inquisitive nature and passion for the wildlife and biodiversity, that is often forgotten about in our busy lives. Landcare Facilitator at Connecting Country, Hadley Cole, said ‘Tavish is such an awesome inspiration for the future of Landcare in our region and has shown that younger members of our community are keen to be involved in land management for a better future. ‘I have seen Tavish educate and inspire others around him, which is such an important role to play in ensuring Landcare continues into the future.’
Tavish now goes on to represent Victoria in the National Landcare Awards later this year. Best of luck Tavish, we’re all cheering for you!
Connecting Country would like to congratulate and thank everyone who contributes to Landcare in our region, and in particular, give a big high five to Marie and Tavish for their extraordinary contributions.
To learn more about Marie and Tavish’s accomplishments head over to the Landcare Magazine’s website to read full articles dedicated to Marie and Tavish – click here
To find out more about Landcare in our region, or to get involved – click here.
Big congratulations Marie and Tavish! So well deserved!!!