As well as honouring achievement they serve an additional valuable purpose in showing the general community what some individuals and groups are doing to meet the challenges of today in a sustainable manner. Hopefully their example will encourage others to adopt sustainable practices.
The awards have four categories - individual, community, schools and business.
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| Award Winners and Award Nominees Present at the Awards Ceremony |
The Award Winners
1) Individual - Dr Tony Courtice, who lives with his family on a proprty at Hernani and is passionate about sustainability in all aspects of his life - from his solar farm to his farming practices.
2) Community - Clarence Valley WIRES which was nominated for its 25 years as a leader in wildlife rescue and care as well as community education. It has received over 77000 calls for animal recsues and information. It is estimated that 50% of in-care animals are successfully released back into the wild.
3) Schools - Dundurrabin Public School is a small school in the west of the Clarence LGA. It prides itself on its commitment to environmental education and sustainability. Staff and students are involved in recycling waste, reducing water usage, composting, the waterwise program, saving energy and using recycled materials. Students participate in weekly cooking lessons using fresh organic produce from the school and local gardens.
4) Business - Jamie Kenneally poineered resource recovery in the Clarence Valley over the last 30 years. From humble beginnings from an old tin shed in South Grafton in 1983, Jamie built a business around recycling, winning contracts with Council to operate the Grafton recycling centre from 2002 to 2013. It is estimated that Jamie's contribution to resource recovery is approximately 66000 tonnes of recycling or three years of landfill space.
