Efforts to protect natural resources in south west Queensland were recognised at an awards evening in Charleville last week.
Local landholder Rob Rennick was announced the overall South West NRM 2016 Mulga Award winner, receiving $2000.
Mr Rennick is described as “a real champion of natural resource management” and someone who recognises the importance of good land management and of continually learning and improving the way resources are managed.
South West Natural Resource Management (NRM) chair Mark O’Brien said the Mulga Awards had returned after an almost decade-long hiatus, recognising the work people were doing to protect the environment and promote sustainable living.
“As one of our award winners, Jack Sommerfield, said this evening, people of the bush don’t sing our praises often enough about how good we are,” Mr O’Brien said.
“I think it was just a good opportunity to say ‘hey there’s some fantastic stuff happening here and we ought to acknowledge it and recognise it and give some people a pat on the back’.
“We recognise that those who are land managers as well as those who support them and provide other services are all important if we are to achieve sustainable landscape management.”
Mr O’Brien congratulated all finalists across the seven categories and commended the event’s large turnout, drawing from the Paroo, Quilpie, Bulloo and Murweh shires.
“It’s an interesting, but purposeful mix of people we’ve got here; we deliberately wanted the local governments and to their credit…we take it as a great badge of honour that the four mayors of our area would come to our function because its important,” he said.
“We can’t operate without their support and us supporting them.”
South West Regional Economic Development (SW RED) Chair and Paroo mayor Lindsay Godfrey congratulated award finalists and said he looked forward to continue working with SW NRM.
“We’re all supporting SW NRM because they’re working collaboratively with us in providing funding for the wild dog control programs and with the roll-out of the cluster fence program,” Cr Godfrey said.
There were six award categories as well as an overall South West NRM Mulga Award.
Finalists were announced at a catchment level a few weeks ago, across the four catchments that make up the South West NRM region - Bulloo River, Warrego River, Paroo River and Nebine Creek.
The six categories, finalists and winners were:
Support Services - organisations or groups who are supporting people to stay in the region, and on the land. Finalists: Ago Vires Pty Ltd, Ross Mitchell. Winner Angie Bowden
NRM Innovation - individuals, groups or businesses who are doing things differently; creative or experimental to protect our natural resources. Finalist: Andrew Schmidt. Winner Greg Sherwin
Sustainable Grazing - landholders who are playing an active role in managing impacts on grazing lands. Finalist: Kylie Hudson. Winner: John and Lindy Sommerfield
Community Leader - those individuals who lead, motivate and engage their local community; bringing people together, reducing social isolation and keeping people connected. Finalists: Rob & Jenny Crichton, Marco Otaolo, Qulipie Cultural Society. Winner: Peter Lucas
NRM Tourism - those organisations that use the natural environment, giving visitors to our region an experience of the outback and an opportunity to learn about the natural history. Finalists: Robyn McKenzie, Peter McRae. Winner: Evening Star Tourist Park
Landcare - schools, groups, organisations or individuals who are playing an active role in the caretaking of our natural resources; for example creek management, pest and week control, conservation or biodiversity. Finalists: Charleville Fishing and Restocking Club, Rob Rennick. Winner: James Theuerkauf
The mayors of Quilpie, Bulloo and Murweh Shires took turns in presenting the 6 category winners with their awards.
