Landcare Australia’s Project Hindmarsh in rural Victoria has been a labour of love for many but, for one member of our Timberwolf Planting team, it’s literally been a lifelong commitment.
Last week a revegetation project which began nearly 30 years ago was completed, with the final stage of a largely volunteer based project delivered by PeopleIN’s contract tree planting business.
And, for Regional Manager for Victoria, Sally Werner, it was a deeply personal experience.
In 1996, Project Hindmarsh began to create a biolink, a wildlife corridor connecting pockets of native vegetation between the Little Desert and the Big Desert in the Hindmarsh shire, northwest of Melbourne.
When the project commenced, Sally was just a newborn. Her family, local landowners and passionate about their local environment, were among the early volunteers. In the years that followed, it became a central part of Sally’s upbringing.
“I was born in the region and grew up on a farm in the Hindmarsh Shire,” Sally said.
“As a family, we’ve attended the project’s volunteering weekend every year for the last 28 years. And I’m 28 years old!”
As a high school student, Sally’s dedication didn’t waver. She organised busloads of classmates from her school in Ballarat to participate in the annual tree-planting weekends (a three-hour drive), fulfilling the school’s community service hours commitment, while also learning about the unique environment.
After moving to Melbourne for her studies, she later moved to New South Wales and began work with Timberwolf Planting. It was then Sally realised her heart belonged to the earth.
“I realised I want to be outside and to put my hands in the dirt,” she said.
Her experiences with Timberwolf reaffirmed this passion. “If I can make tree planting a career and get paid to do something that brings me joy, why wouldn’t I?”, she added.
Her career choice led her back to Project Hindmarsh, this time in a professional capacity. In an extraordinary twist, a childhood neighbour contacted her at Timberwolf earlier this year to explain contract planting would be used for the final stage of the project. Neither realised the other was still involved with the project or the planting industry.
And the personal connections didn’t end there. The Landcare Victoria coordinator’s husband had gone to school with Sally’s brother.
“I think the stars aligned on this one. It doesn’t happen often to have so many personal links to a project,” she says.
The final planting, completed at Nhill in the Wimmera, was a moment of profound satisfaction for Sally. The team of four planted 7,000 plants, a mix of trees, grasses, and shrubs, along with 4,000 guards.
“It’s not a huge quantity in the project, but it needed time and the care,” she explains.
As Sally oversaw the final touches on the biolink her family helped to start when she was just a baby, it was an emotional moment.
“It’s a deeply personal thing for me that this has come full circle and I’m proud our family was part of this important project from its first day to its last,” she said.
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