Beechworth clinches fifth Tidy Towns Sustainability Award

Burrumbuttock's Wirraminna Climate Adaptive Haven secured top spot in the climate change mitigation and adaption category at the Keep Australia Beautiful NSW Tidy Towns Awards 2023. Meanwhile, Albury Council received high praise for its DO-DO the Right Thing initiative and Business Soft Plastic Recycling Trial.

To tackle the impending climate changes, Wirraminna created five woodland vegetation communities, featuring species carefully selected from surrounding regions with similar projected conditions.

"The whole point is getting people to think about climate change, how it actually happens and what the impacts may be," Wirraminna volunteer Judy Frankenberg said.

"The forecast tells us that we are going to have a climate similar to the Forbes or Parkes area by 2070.

"We started thinking about it, saying if that's going to be our climate, what might our vegetation look like?

"So the volunteers came up with the idea of planting five vegetation communities, and all the seeds and all the plants have been sourced from around the Parkes and Dubbo area."

In Victoria, Beechworth clinched its fifth Tidy Towns Sustainability Award and is set to represent the state at the national awards in Gascoyne Junction, Western Australia in 2024.

They were up against steep competition from the Tidy Town finalists including Rosebud, Violet Town and Torquay but it was their innovative community and sustainability initiatives that got them over the line.

These include Quercus Beechworth Neighbourhood House, Totally Renewable Beechworth, Dreams Can Come True Formal Wear Hire, Drag'd Out Beechworth, Bee School by Beechworth Honey, the Aboriginal Ring Trees initiative, Burke Museum and Beechworth Lions Club.

Iris Mannik of the Beechworth Tidy Towns Committee expressed gratitude for the hard working volunteers.

"Everyone is thrilled to bits, and it was good to see people that weren't aware of the program, taking it on with such enthusiasm," she said.

"It is amazing what we can achieve if we all work together.

"And I hope more people realise, if we have our volunteers, we can achieve great things."

Yackandandah also earned recognition, winning the "energy" category with their Transitioning Yackandandah to 100 per cent Renewable Energy project.

"It was great to see the Yackandandah group enter this year and even win it," Mrs Mannik said.

"It astounds me every year what has been achieved with just a small amount of people."

To read more stories, download The Border Mail news app in the Apple Store or Google Play.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: