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Vicki-Jo Russell – Program Manager Revegetation Services

I’d worked with Trees For Life in other roles since the early nineties and always admired the Tree Scheme and Bushcare models. In 2015, I was looking for a role where I could contribute to practical outcomes on ground and at scale to deliver change for people and nature and to work for an organisation with a strong community-based culture. I was thrilled when I was offered a role with Trees For Life. On my first day the staff held a home-made morning tea to thank some of the major donors and volunteers and I felt like I’d come home. Great people, gratitude for our supporters and ambition to do good work is so genuine at Trees For Life and I’m sure that is central to why we’re celebrating our 40th. 40 is a great age! It’s old enough to have learned from some of the spectacular mistakes of youth, but not so old as to be looking for a seaside property post retirement. At 40, as you approach your prime, you know who you are, and I believe this is true for Trees For Life; a prime I hope will last another 40 years. After all, our work is as important now as it was when we started. I feel proud of being part of our 40th year but it’s one of many milestones I am sure we’ll achieve as the Trees For Life community is just warming up.

It is hard to identify a single proudest moment at Trees For Life. Some highlights have been how far the Westwood Nursery has come in the past five years including the annual plant sale which is a “must go to” event in many of our supporter’s calendar, new projects such as Red-tail habitat and paddock trees in the south east and Reclaim the Dunes in the City of Holdfast Bay and working side by side with landholders and regional communities on bushfire recovery.

I have never worked for an organisation like Trees For Life where supporters write such heartfelt letters or call up to talk to staff. Trees For Life in its 40th year is the sum of every one of those supporters, growers, revegetators, bushcarers, planters, donors, partners, staff, Board and friends and we carry those good wishes with us.

My hopes for the future; landscapes need at least 30% of their ecosystems intact to function and more to thrive. Trees For Life has the community, experience and passion it needs to make a significant contribution to that target so that South Australia’s community and landscapes flourish. It may look a little different in our mind’s eye than it would have 40 years ago when the understanding of climate change was only emerging in public debate, but it will be magnificent just the same. It will be healthy and it will be home.

LEFT: Vicki-Jo Russell at the plant give-way for the Pinery bushfire recovery. ABOVE: Amelia Hurren at a planting day at Willaston. RIGHT: Randall Bates at an extended Bush Action Team on Kangaroo Island.

Randall Bates – Group Activites Coordinator, Bush For Life

My journey with Trees For Life started in September 2004. I was having a whole life and career change and wanted to volunteer doing something for the environment and the community.

It was after I attended my first bushcare workshop, I decided that this was the organisation I would like to work for. For the next two years I undertook studies in Conservation and Land Management, gaining work experience and continuing to volunteer. I first met Peter Watton whilst still a student. Some time later when I had completed my studies he rang me and asked if I would like to work for Trees For Life a couple of days a week. I started out in the contract team which later became TFL Works. A short time later I was offered a full time position; one I have now held for over 13 years!

Now Trees For Life is turning 40 and I am enormously proud of the members, volunteers and staff who have helped to keep this wonderful organisation running for so long while having changes of staff and volunteers. The baton keeps being passed onto new people and these people keep rising to all the challenges we have met over 40 years to help it continue to survive and thrive and help the environment recover. I get a real sense of achievement from being able to work with and support volunteers and staff and help them to help the environment while learning from them.

Amelia Hurren – Program Manager, Bush For Life

I have known about Trees For Life for as long as I can remember. My mother’s side of the family is from Strathalbyn and my grandmother was good friends with Betty Westwood. While I can’t recall actually meeting Betty, I was aware of her influence on my grandparents and on the Strathalbyn community. I joined Trees For Life as a volunteer in 2004. I had just returned to Adelaide from nine years living in Sydney to start a new job as Bush Management Advisor in the Adelaide Hills. My first priority was to re-familiarise myself with SA vegetation and learn bush management skills, and joining Bush For Life was the obvious pathway to do this. I attended a workshop and adopted a Bush For Life site, learning from Trees For Life legends, Andrew Allanson, Peter Tucker and Sue Bradstreet. It was ten years later that I joined as a staff member, taking on the Bush For Life Manager position in 2014.

It feels joyous to know that an organisation which began from a group of passionate conservationists has become such a force for positive on-ground action in SA. It fills me with hope to see the organisation having not only continued for 40 years but grow in skill, reputation and diversity over that time.

There are so many moments and achievements that make me feel proud. But I can’t go past the team I work with who makes me proud every day. Their incredible passion and commitment to conserving the earth on which we all depend is humbling. They are always striving to be their best for our volunteers and for nature. Sometimes our work as bushcarers goes unappreciated because it tends to be slow and steady. But like the tortoise in the fable, we can see the incredible outcomes this slow and steady approach achieves from before and after photos on some of our long-term sites. Knowing that my work is making a difference to the health of our earth, and empowering others to join this effort, makes me very proud.

Peter Watton – Operations Manager, Bush For Life

I spent the first 16 years of my working life with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, then took a voluntary retrenchment package after it was privatised. After doing the home husband and parent thing for a few months with our two young daughters, I started up a small parttime lawn mowing and gardening round. Soon afterwards I started some study with TAFE SA, with parttime evening classes. I started two courses, Certificate 3 in Horticulture (Gardening) and Certificate 3 in Horticulture (Turf), then later Certificate 3 in Natural Resources.

Andrew Allanson, who started the Bush For Life program at Trees For Life in 1994, came along as a guest speaker at one of the bushcare classes. His talk was basically a very abbreviated version of the Introduction to

Bushcare Workshops we still run.

I finished the three TAFE courses and then booked into one of the Bush For Life workshops early in 2000. At the end of the workshop, attendees were asked whether they wanted to adopt a site and could nominate where they wanted to volunteer. I had found a small council reserve near home with native vegetation on it while doing a plant herbarium as part of one of my TAFE courses, and said I would like to volunteer there.

Andrew, who was one of the presenters at the Bush For Life workshop, arranged to meet me at the site and agreed it was suitable for the program. He compiled a species list, identifying 46 native species, and arranged with the local council to establish the reserve as a Bush For Life site. At my official site introduction, Andrew asked me whether I would like to be a Bush For Life Regional Coordinator. I delayed this until later in the year, but then took on my first five sites as Regional Coordinator.

Being that I knew I wanted to work in the conservation area, I had also applied for a job in the Tree Scheme in September 2000, as Tree Scheme Materials Officer. While I got an interview, I missed out on the job, but was offered the same position 12 months later, when the original appointee got another job. This meant I now had the equivalent of four days a week work with Trees For Life, which became five when I did a day a week as Seed Bank Assistant, helping the Seed Bank Manager collect, clean and sort seed for the Tree Scheme. Each of these jobs had busy and quiet times during the year, and it was a bit of a juggling act fitting them all together.

After a while, the Bush For Life Regional Coordinator work changed from contractor to employee, which the other roles already were, and this simplified things a lot. Also, over time, each role became busier, so that I had to decide which would be my main work and which would fall by the wayside. As people can guess, my true passion is in bush regeneration, so that’s where I ended up full time.

I think I can say that it is largely with a sense of pride that Trees For Life has continued to grow and adapt over the years, as new challenges and pressures on our environment arise. Trees For Life remains as important and, perhaps, even more relevant than ever.

I suppose I can also say I’m proud of my longevity working at Trees For Life, and the various roles over that time. In particular, I’d like to think I’ve had some small influence on the personal interest and development of staff members and volunteers who I’ve worked with.

I was the 2017 SA Landcare Award Winner–Australian Government Individual Landcare Award, after being nominated by work colleagues. I was probably more rapt that someone I worked with put the time and effort into nominating me than actually winning the award.

Clearly, there was something that struck a chord for me personally, in particular the right of our natural vegetation to exist, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Sam Buxton Stewart – Field Officer, Bush For Life

I was lucky enough to see an admin job advertised through uni in 2007, when I was in the last year of an Environmental Management degree. I knew Trees For Life aligned with my values because I had done a small bit of volunteer work already, (with Alan Dandie on his Windy Point site, think I lasted two days!), so I applied and got that job straight from uni. This led to many other roles; Volunteer Support in the Bush For Life program, Bush Action Team Supervisor and Regional Coordinator in the City of Mitcham.

It makes me feel very humbled to know that so many people in our community care enough about the environment, and put their trust in Trees For Life and us as staff, to drive environmental change for 40 years. The organisation has grown in leaps and bounds, not just in numbers but in the range of environmental programs that we offer, and that never would have happened without the volunteers that participate in onground activities and the members, donors and sponsors that support us financially.

It isn’t an achievement of mine, but I take great pride in seeing the huge change that volunteers have achieved on Bush For Life sites in the City of Mitcham. Volunteers have worked on some of these grey box grassy woodland regenerated sites for almost 30 years (some by the same group of volunteers), and the improvements in the native biodiversity have been astounding. Our organisation couldn’t achieve what we do without our dedicated and passionate volunteers.