All Saints College Native Tree Propagation Nursery (1997-2007)

In 1997 students from All Saints’ College won $1000 in the Readers Digest Environment Award. They won this award for their work on the Winburndale Green Corridor project where they planted and maintained several thousand native trees.

Winburndale Landcare worked with local schools, landholders, Greening Australia, and other stakeholders to develop a ‘Green Corridor’ along the Winburndale Rivulet from the Winburndale Dam to the confluence of the Winburndale with the Macquarie River.

The money won by the students was used to build and equip a student designed native tree propagation nursery in the school grounds. This is an ongoing student based project that provides Macquarie Rivercare and other local green groups with native tube stock propagated by the students. Natives propagated include River She Oak Casuarina cunninghamiane and Kangaroo Grass Themada australis.

The Hector Park Wetland Project is one example of a joint initiative between Bathurst City Council, Macquarie Rivercare and the All Saints College Nursery to grow Kangaroo Grass for Hector Park, an area of degraded Wetland along Jordan Creek, which is presently being rehabilitated by BCC and local green groups including Greening Bathurst and Macquarie Rivercare.

More recently All Saints’ students have worked with Macquarie Rivercare and Simplot to rehabilitate wetlands and waterways on the Simplot farmlands below the school. All Saints’ students have also planted out their native trees and shrubs along the Macquarie River between the Evans Bridge and the Railway Bridge in conjunction with Bathurst Regional Council, Greening Bathurst and Macquarie Rivercare.

In 2007 Conservation Volunteers from around the world have worked at the nursery propagating seedlings that were struck earlier in the year by the boys and girls in the Aboriginal ‘students at risk’ CVA / TAFE group. Some of these trees will be planted out at the Kelso Community Centre. Others will go to the proposed Edgells Creek project above the school.

This ongoing environmental project has been integrated into the schools Human Society and Its Environment Curriculum. This project provides school students with positive “hands on” fieldwork and community service. Students can feel that they are making a personal contribution in response to some of the major environmental problems/issues facing the world today including deforestation, global warming, land degradation, soil depletion, and species endangerment. Far too often young people can be left feeling powerless and helpless about these highly publicised environmental problems. Involvement in this project shows them that they can make a difference at a personal level.