The first thing Wal Mayr does when we sit down to chat about his recent Landcare Award is excitedly show me a photo of a Greater Glider, seen just the night before on his Austinville property. Greater Gliders are endangered, so spotting one so close to one of the most densely populated cities in Australia is exciting… but it’s not unexpected.
Wal bought the Austinville banana farm 45 years ago, when he was just 19. Since that time he and his wife Heather have been steadfastly restoring it to its natural condition – a weed-free nature refuge that is now home to wildlife like the Greater Glider.
But, it wasn’t buying that property that compelled Wal and Heather to devote a huge chunk of their lives to hands-on landcare action though. It was a hiking trip through Borneo.
“When Heather and I backpacked, we flew into the centre of Borneo and then walked out. We walked with nomads and had a wonderful experience. We saw pristine wilderness. We were in a canoe and came across a deer and we’d eat it for lunch, we’d fish in this pristine bush. But then we came across the logging. We’d suddenly hit these muddy, destroyed streams and I thought ‘wow, the planet’s changing’. That was a real moment of change,” Wal said.
I met Wal in the mid 1990s, when he sat on a statewide committee for Greening Australia and then in 2000 he became involved in the Gold Coast Catchment Association.
It wasn’t until 2005 that Wal and his neighbours started Austinville Landcare Group, one of 6000 not-for-profit, community landcare organisations in Australia. While the landcare movement started in the nation’s rural communities in the 1980s, it very quickly spread to urban and peri-urban settings as people desperately sought hands-on, practical solutions to land and water management issues.
As well as being the Coordinator of Austinville Landcare Group, Wal is President of Watergum (previously Gold Coast Catchment Association) and Heather is the organisation’s treasurer.
Watergum has grown to be the umbrella group for dozens of incorporated and unincorporated community environment groups across the Gold Coast, with a strong portfolio of land restoration, citizen science, biodiversity enhancement and invasive species control projects across the city and neighbouring catchments.
Wal also sits on the National Landcare Network’s membership council.
Last month Wal was recognised for his decades-long contribution to landcare, taking out the top honours at the National Landcare Awards in Sydney being announced as the winner of the Australian Government Individual Landcare of the Year.
Wal is humble but not in the kinda way that diminishes the contributions of himself and others. He knows how hard community volunteers work to achieve change on the ground as well as in the halls of parliament. He knows exactly how much he’s given over the past four decades. And that work has been equal parts physical and equal parts administrative. He and Heather are just as likely to be poring through financial statements as they are to be slinging backpacks to spray weeds – whether on private property or public land. But he says the thing he loves doing the most is building relationships that result in those important conservation outcomes.
“The thing I love doing is the partnership thing,” Wal said. “We’ve got this wonderful relationship with the Private Partnerships guys in Council, a great partnership with Paul Donatiu and Healthy Land & Water, a great partnership with Saraya Robinson and her Beaches to Bushland Unit, a great partnership with Council’s Catchment Management Unit.”
“Bringing people together and forming partnerships is so critical. Because when you’re on the ground as a landcarer, you see things, but then you’ve got to leverage your relationships to make change happen. Council has all the power and the money, we help to direct it.”
“You’re the eyes and the ears, and the arms and the legs on the ground. If you’re not trying to change policy, then policy happens in isolation,” Wal said.
“Gold Coast City Council has done a wonderful job. They’ve got four environmental sections and they’re all keen to partner. One thing I found at the National Landcare Conference is that in other parts of Australia, the States fund Landcare, but we don’t have that in Queensland. So on the Gold Coast, we have the luxury of a big council. And we’re now leveraging Logan, Tweed and Scenic Rim. So these big Councils are the methods of us getting partnerships, funding our group by doing real work and then trying to help them find a better direction.”
While building those partnerships with governments, corporations and the community, Watergum is very busy achieving outcomes on the ground. They’re helping people better understand, manage and eradicate invasive species, they’re rolling out citizen science projects such as PlatypusWatch and seagrass monitoring, they’re working with landholders at the source of our rivers and catchments to improve water quality, they’re helping to recover endangered species such as the Pink Underwing Moth and migratory shorebirds and they’re removing weeds and restoring habitat across countless hectares.
Austinville Landcare has generated some $750,000 in grants over the past two years, but they’re unincorporated, so Watergum auspices those projects as well as those of 50 groups including Nerang Riverkeepers, OceanConnect, Friends of Nerang National Park, Coomera River Catchment Group, Quoll Society of Australia, Surfrider Foundation Gold Coast and Friends of Federation Walk.
We get back to talking about the award and receiving it on-stage alongside Costa at a huge ceremony in Sydney. What did it feel like to win that award? Firstly Wal laughs and says that Costa ran interference because his acceptance speech went on a longer than organisers would have liked. But he had important things to say.
“I really said, ‘we’ve got to put reverence to Country in the same value system as Indigenous people do. The same way we have this reverence for the economy now.”
“But yeah, winning the award, when you work and you don’t get paid and you’re doing a lot of hours, I don’t think people understand. Most people would get paid for that stuff. And when you’re doing all of it unpaid, it’s great getting a little bit of recognition,” Wal explained.
And while Wal has given he’s also received.
“You get so much back.”
“The people you meet, it keeps you young, keeps you sharp. Because working with young people, their brains are firing. As you age, you’ve got a lot of experience, but to keep young and to keep firing, you’ve got to challenge eachother. And of course, people in landcare are good people. And when you’re ageing, you definitely don’t want to work with dickheads,” Wal laughs.
While Wal says winning the Landcare Award was an absolute highlight he’s also quick to acknowledge it’s a joint award naming his wife Heather, his neighbours in Austinville Landcare and the team at Watergum, especially Rosalinde Brinkman, Emily Vincent and Kristyn Way, as part of that winning team.
“It’s only by working together that we have created real momentum in maintaining and restoring the beautiful natural landscapes of the Gold Coast and hinterland,” Wal said.
“I am especially inspired and motivated by the young landcarers I have the privilege to work with, and am hopeful that this award shows them that by undertaking meaningful environmental work and combined with passion, energy and good management, we can realise our dream of changing society and making a positive environmental impact.”
