VOLUNTEERS and committee members at the Heyfield Wetlands have been recognised with a national award.
The prize was bestowed by the River Basin Management Society at their Awards Gala Dinner, held November 22 in the Leopard Lodge function room at Melbourne Zoo.
“Think of it as the Logies for Water Management people,” Wetlands committee member Mike Kube told the Gippsland Times.
The Heyfield Wetlands won for “Involving community in waterway management”.
Organisers praised the initiative as “the success story of a passionate community with infectious enthusiasm.”
“The Heyfield Wetlands Committee harnessed enormous community support to create a treasured local space and ecological asset,” organisers said.
“After decades of work to restore and now water the wetlands, the wetlands are flourishing.”
Mr Kube received the award of the committee’s behalf, alongside the West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority’s (WGCMA) Caitlin Pilkington and Stephanie Suter, who secured the nomination.
“They’d done an amazing amount of work – I mean, I don’t think anyone else stood a chance with the way they wrote it,” Mr Kube said.
“They’ve done an amazing job on it – like, eight pages of stuff that they had to put together for the nomination.”
Heyfield’s Wetlands, in their present form, were brought to life over two decades ago on the site of the former Heyfield Racecourse.
Improvements to the Wetlands is ongoing, with committee members preparing to unveil a new viewing platform on the site in the coming days.
The committee has also received a grant from the Gippsland Lakes Coordinating Committee, which shall be utilised to introduce “thousands” more plants to the site.
Mr Kube described the funds as “probably the biggest grant we’ve ever had”.
“We’re talking (to) someone who’s managing the whole project, and hopefully engaging school groups and community groups to help us put it all together,” he said.
“We’ve got two years to it, so hopefully it’ll be quite a dramatic change over the next two years.”
