The VEFN celebrated the achievements and hard work of our Friend Groups at our VEFN AGM and Awards Ceremony on Saturday, 16th November. We know all Friend Groups do amazing work, but we wish to highlight the Award winners and highly commended recipients. There’s some inspirational work being diligently performed without fuss in special places around the State, whether they are up in the mountains, beside riverbanks or alongside the coastline.

  • The winner most Outstanding Friends Group Award went to the Friends of Edwardes Lake who exemplified all the criteria of the award creating a beautiful habitat in an urban environment. Their communication about the local swans, particularly about Kevin, who made it into the media with the traumas of repeated partner loss because of dogs and discarded fishing gear, raised awareness of the impacts on wildlife and created a community that cared and protected this local green space in Reservoir.
  • Highly commended for the Outstanding Friends Group Award went to the Friends of Merbein Common located up near Mildura. As the locals up there say, “there’s nothing common about Merbein Common”. Close to the town centre, Merbein Common flanks the mighty Murray River, providing sanctuary to wildlife and the locals who live in this riparian zone.
  • Also highly commended for the Outstanding Friends Group Award was the Ashburton Creek Biodiversity Crew (ACBC) a relatively new group actively recruiting new members to clear weeds and plant vegetation to attract the local birdlife back into the Ashburton area.
  • The winner of our new award, the CDS Vic Litter Award, sponsored by Vic Return, went to the Friends of Mount Worth who have demonstrated the wonderful benefits of not only collecting the litter from their local State Park near East Warragul, but also have gained financially, with the knowledge that the cans collected are being recycled correctly. The funding collected has gone back into revegetation projects and track repairs, as needed, in this special rainforest habitat.