E&OE….
Topics: Green Army Round 3 Project Announcement
GREG HUNT:
Look, welcome everybody this morning to Red Hill. I particularly want to welcome Senator Zed Seselja but also the Green Army team. This is the ACT Connecting Communities Green Army team and especially to the Friends groups. To the Red Hill Park Care team that’s been doing this, I think, for twenty-seven years. You’re the real-deal, the backbone of environmental protection, not just here in Canberra, but around the country. It’s all about supporting groups such as yourselves.
So today, I am delighted to announce an extra 156 Green Army projects. These will be doing projects in every State and Territory. There is a particular focus on the Reef with 23 teams working in the Great Barrier Reef area. There’s a particular focus on remote and especially Indigenous Australia with almost 50 teams working in remote and Indigenous Australia and then there’s a special focus on threatened species and 102 of the teams will be working on threatened species. Obviously there is some overlap there.
Here in the ACT another four projects, that’ll take the ACT up to twelve projects. And the Green Army’s a very simple concept. It’s about two big things. It’s about doing good things for the environment, helping with the vision of the Friends groups, helping with the work of Greening Australia and Conservation Volunteers Australia to regenerate bushland, to remove invasive species, to help with the recovery of both flora and fauna around the country, to make a real difference that will last and it’s about giving young people the opportunity to work in the field, to develop skills, to develop work habits and to give them an opportunity and a pathway and we’re really proud.
We’re really proud of you guys and you should each be really proud of yourselves. So to the Friends groups, thank you, you have done a fantastic job and if in some small way the Green Army helps the grey army, that’s a tremendous outcome and I would put it this way as well, that you have young people doing the right thing by the environment, but also by themselves and that’s exactly as things should be. Zed?
ZED SESELJA:
Yeah look thanks Greg and I don’t need to add too much except to say that we’re really pleased that we’ve got the four extra projects here in the ACT. I’ve had the opportunity to visit with some of the projects out in the Cotter catchment. Obviously that’s very, very important work for things like our water supply. But also I think a number of projects are looking at how we access our nature parks, how we access Namadgi, how we make that more accessible whilst protecting those areas.
So I think that’s a win-win and I think it’s, having spoken to a number of participants, I know what value they get from it. So the environment gets value but the participants also get great value and great skills, so it’s fantastic news for the ACT.
GREG HUNT:
Alright. Well done guys.
(ENDS)