2012 Annual Report - Hunter Wetlands Centre Australia

A 5 year project funded by the FederalGovernments Biodiversity Fund to replace upto 8 ha of weeds with a major extension ofour rainforest.The revegetation of Farm Dam and a new SiteManagement Plan funded by the HCRCMAwas commenced. The revegetation work isbeing supervised by Jenny Castles (BoardMember and Hunter Landcare NetworkMember).The Wallaby Flat revegetation processis almost complete and will certainly becompleted in 2013. The “Thursday Mob” ledby Paddy Lightfoot has transformed this areawhich was a large blackberry patch a numberof years ago into a magnificent example of asite revegetated by local native plants.Hunter Water and the NSW EnvironmentalTrust were also major funding partners in therevegetation process along with a number ofother smaller funding bodies.John Dugas, Jonathan Cordingly, Roger Pryorand Tom Bagnatt resigned from the Boardduring the year for a variety of reasons as didlong standing Director Ted Lewis who aftermany years has decided to take a well earnedrest. Thank you all for your assistance andguidance.Professor Joe Bidwell, Chair of theEnvironmental Science Department atNewcastle University, Deon Van Rensburg,Area Manager NPWS and John Stuart joinedthe Board and are all working well andmaking valuable contributions.Long serving staff members Shane Holmesand Rae Nelson departed and are bothmissed and I thank them for their service.Above all though, I would like to pay tributeto our many wonderful volunteers. Thereare too many to mention individually. Theywork in all sections of the organisation andare the glue that keeps the organisationtogether. This year a new innovation hasbeen the introduction to the volunteerranks of a number of overseas studentsfrom the University. They come from arange of nations but the majority are fromChina. They have worked in most areasof the Centre but by far the most valuablecontribution was made during the heat ofNovember, December and January whenon regular occasions along with our regularvolunteers they worked in severe heatto hand water over 8000 newly plantednatives. This new source of volunteers wastapped by Grant Morgan our volunteercoordinator who is also the StudentRepresentative on the University Senate.11