Bottle Bend Reserve volunteers rewarded for years of hard work at Community Achievement Awards
Three years ago, OzFish and Landcare teamed up to make waterway health in NSW a priority and now some of the local groups are being awarded for their continuous efforts.
Bottle Bend Landcare Group’s partnership with OzFish Unlimited has been rewarded at the NSW Gala Community Achievement Awards.
The Bottle Bend Reserve Committee of Management has finished runner-up after being nominated as a finalist at the NSW/ACT-2023 Community Achievement Awards presentation at the Sydney Masonic Centre on November 25.
OzFish is proud to have helped the hard-working volunteers enhance the reserve on the NSW side of the Murray River near Mildura.
Australia’s recreational fishing charity has provided funding and support, through the Landcare NSW and OzFish collaboration project, allocated the River Repair Bus program on a fortnightly basis to collect rubbish and undertake weed control, assist the Landcare Group in running community pest species removal days and installing native fish habitat.
Braeden Lampard – Senior Program Manager said “Bottle Bend Reserve has special significance in the local landscape socially, culturally and environmentally”
“For locals, the reserve is a much sought-after access point to the Murray River. We are proud to be able to support groups like this to take ownership, we see it as a shared responsible and know that together we can achieve more. If it means improving the environment for native fish – we’re also 100 per cent onboard.”
“The reserve is also culturally significant to Indigenous people as it contains many cultural heritage sites”
Environmentally, the reserve forms part of a continuous vegetated corridor that extends from Mildura to the Hattah National Park and the Murray Sunset National Park.
Bottle Bend Reserve also has a series of inland wetlands that are close to the main river channel. The conservation is an important part of protecting and enhancing habitat for fish under the Native Fish Strategy.
Bottle Bend was managed by Forests NSW as a state forest for many years before it became a Reserve in 2010.
The NSW Department of Industry and Environment (DPIE) – Crown Lands developed a committee of management made up of seven local community members with a broad representation to manage the site in 2017.
To find out more about the OzFish | Landcare NSW partnership, click here.