TWENTY-FIVE intrepid landcarers braved the cold and windy Breadalbane Plains on Saturday September 9 to celebrate Landcare week.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The special guest of the day was Brian Cumberland OAM, recently honoured in the Queen's Birthday Honours for service to conservation and the environment in the Australian Capital Territory and south east New South Wales region. Mr Cumberland was the Operations Manager for Greening Australia, Capital Region, for 20 years.
During this time, Mr Cumberland, with his trusty Rodden III direct seeder visited many properties in the district and it is estimated that Mr Cumberland direct seeded over twenty million plants into southeast NSW soils.
Mr Cumberland, who is now retired, held a strong connection with the Breadalbane Plains Landcare Group and with the Breadalbane Public School and over a period of 10 years assisted the Breadalbane School to establish a native tree nursery and took the children around local properties on tree planting expeditions.
Mr Cumberland described the partnership with the school children as a lot of fun.
"The school children would have put roughly 12,000 trees in the ground over the period, collecting the seeds and growing their own trees," Mr Cumberland said.
Jenny Bell of "Bohara" describes the tree planting days with the Breadalbane School children as "potentially life changing for some of the children.
"Some of them had never been on the back of a farm ute before and the chance to get out on a farm and plant some trees was a great experience for them," Ms Bell said.
The Breadalbane Landcare celebrations included a tour of some of the tree planting projects that the school and Mr Cumberland had undertaken including the Breadalbane Park, South Raeburn and Bohara.
Tony Morrison, the inaugural Breadalbane Landcare President, gave a short speech about the beginnings of Landcare in Breadalbane and paid tribute to Nick Wise, the first secretary of the Breadalbane Plains Landcare Group.
Mr Wise travelled from the Central Coast to take part in the celebrations and was extremely pleased to see how well the projects which he had overseen as part of the National Heritage Trust grant had transformed the landscape and how Landcare was still alive and strong in Breadalbane.
The tour also included Percy Bell and Philip Bell's Breadalbane Wetland Rehabilitation Project at "Dairy Flat" and "Greendale", Frank and Maryanne Hannan's revegetation project at "Maryfield", some of Brian Cumberland's direct seeding work and a Healthy Farm Dam Project at Rod Edwards and Jenny Bell's property "Bohara" and the Breadalbane Iron Stone Mine Remediation by Divalls at "South Raeburn".
The tour took place on the windiest and coolest day of the season but that didn't deter Elva Gale from Parkesbourne or Ray Shiels from Goulburn who described it as a great opportunity to see the tremendous shelter benefits that trees offer on farms.
The celebrations concluded with an obligatory BQQ at the Breadalbane Hall.
