Linda Vernon – Landcare Facilitator / Coordinator Award

Project Profile

Issues

Linda Vernon is a dedicated and well regarded Landcare professional in the Central Wheatbelt NRM district, working tirelessly within the community to identify and develop NRM requirements.  Throughout her career, Linda has assisted hundreds of landholders in improving the quality of their properties both economically and environmentally. She also actively participates in her own community and devotes much of her time outside work volunteering her time to help improve the Shire of Trayning for residents and visitors.

Project Detail

Trayning local Linda Vernon has been nominated for a National Landcare Award for paving the way forward for NRM in the Central Wheatbelt.

Linda is a dedicated and well regarded Landcare professional in the Central Wheatbelt NRM district, working tirelessly within the community to identify and develop NRM requirements.  Throughout her career, Linda has assisted hundreds of landholders in improving the quality of their properties both economically and environmentally. She also actively participates in her own community and devotes much of her time outside work volunteering her time to help improve the Shire of Trayning for residents and visitors.

Beginning her NRM career as a Landcare trainee in 1999 at the Shires of Merredin, Nungarin and Trayning, Linda has gone on to excel in her role as a Landcare Officer at the Shire of Trayning driving a number of projects spanning 13 Shires throughout the Wheatbelt. Most recently, Linda has worked as the Program Manager of the Saltland Pastures Association (SPA), working with farmers throughout the south west of Western Australia to improve saline properties by encouraging perennial fodder crops to be planted.

In her role with Landcare, Linda coordinated both the ‘Corridors Across NEWROC’ program’, to revegetate corridors being planted through six shires and the ‘Fox Free NEWROC program’, which provided landholders across seven Shires with fox baits to eliminate fox predation on livestock and native animals. Under Linda’s guidance, in 2008, the NEWROC and WEROC NRM groups applied for funding through the Federal Government’s ‘Caring for Our Country’ program and received $273,000 for encouraging perennial farming systems within the Eastern Wheatbelt.

Linda also was a coordinator for the Wheatbelt NRM Region project ‘Our Patch’, which provided over $500,000 of on-ground funding and assistance to 36 Local Government Authorities in the Avon River Basin to protect and enhance priority local areas of remnant vegetation and waterways. Linda also obtained $20,000 in funding to revegetate and improve recreation facilities at the Billycatting Reserve in Trayning. In 2007, Linda managed the NEWROC Oil Mallee Project and obtained $214,000 of funding to plant 640,000 Oil Mallees on 34 farms to manage land degradation issues.

To further the development in skills for Landcare throughout Western Australia and interstate, Linda has been working with Future Farm Industries (FFI), DAFWA and NSW TAFE group Evertrain to improve knowledge into the use of saltland pastures in her role SA Programs Manager for the Saltland Pastures Association (SPA).  Linda also mentors new NRM Officers throughout the NEWROC and WEROC Shires and offers project management advice to current NRM officers.

Linda Vernon is one of 88 finalists in the National Landcare Awards to be announced in Canberra on 24 June 2010. Commencing in 1991, the Awards celebrate the achievements of individuals and groups that make a valuable contribution to the land and coast where they live and work.

Photography

Linda Vernon