Junior Landcare ambassador Costa Georgiadis tells us why we should enter the Landcare Awards. "Nature depends on people. Nature needs you."
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00:00 [Music plays]
00:06 Hi everyone, it's Costa here, Junior Landcare Ambassador.
00:09 Did you know that land care has been going for more than 35 years?
00:14 Now, I want to paint a little bit of a picture of what that 35 years has meant.
00:21 It is a network that grew out of a need to protect our farmland,
00:27 to protect the landscapes where our farmlands existed.
00:31 But it has since grown to cover the nation.
00:35 Thousands and thousands of land care groups made up of a broad,
00:40 diverse of intergenerational activity from schools and children
00:46 right through to elders looking after their landscapes.
00:50 First Nations people, First Nations rangers, land and sea rangers,
00:55 continuing their care for country, to local coastal groups
01:01 looking after their beaches and their dunes.
01:05 Volunteers who step up weekly, monthly, across the whole year
01:10 to help look after the landscapes where they live,
01:14 to help build an interconnected network,
01:18 to bring patches of remnant bushland together
01:21 so that it can be a corridor for wildlife.
01:26 It can be a place for people to recreate and relax
01:31 and immerse themselves in the landscape.
01:35 Landcare has been a place for volunteers to step up,
01:40 to step forward and say, "I'm going to go and participate."
01:44 It's not just the planting of plants and planting of ground covers and trees.
01:50 It's actually the growing of community, the growing of understanding,
01:56 an understanding of nature.
01:58 When you have a better understanding of nature,
02:00 you will then step up to protect it because you love it.
02:05 Because when you love something, you want to make sure that it's safe.
02:09 Nature depends on people like us to restore, nurture and protect it.
02:17 And there's people like this all around the country.
02:20 Everywhere that I travel, I see groups that are stepping up.
02:24 And I think if you take a closer look in your community,
02:28 you'll find groups near you that are doing amazing things.
02:33 To me, they all have their nature goggles on
02:36 and they've found an issue or a pathway or a patch of their world
02:42 that needs some love.
02:45 The National Landcare Awards aren't restricted to land care groups.
02:50 It's open to individuals, groups and organisations
02:54 that are out there in your community doing their best
02:58 to help look after our landscapes.
03:01 So if you know someone in your community who's helping out nature,
03:05 who's repairing, protecting and safeguarding it,
03:09 in any way, nominate them for a Landcare Award.
03:14 Let them know that we care.
03:17 For all the work you do, for all the time you spend,
03:21 for the connections and threads and community building you create,
03:28 thank you. Nature needs you.
03:31 [Music plays]