2010 AG Awards Conservationist of the Year: Trevor Evans
AFTER 20 YEARS AS a coalminer, Trevor Evans put down his tools. In doing so he fulfilled his life-long dream and founded Secret Creek, 250 hectares of bushland in Lithgow New South Wales, and home to conservation projects for 12 different species of locally endangered wildlife and countless native species of trees.
Always interested in conservation, Trevor studied religiously during his time as a miner, earning qualifications in ecotourism and environmental management, before creating the Australian Ecosystems Foundation in 2001.
The foundation, which is run from Secret Creek, has supported the reintroduction of species such as the eastern quoll – though extinct on mainland Australia – into the south eastern states of Australia. It has also been involved, without scientific interference, in the breeding of black eastern quolls and white alpine dingoes, preserving their genetic line for future generations.
The foundation, which runs through the support of its members and Trevor’s four-and-a-half star restaurant, annually undertakes mammoth native plant rejuvenation, planting up to 25,000 native trees a year along degraded rivers and farmlands, reintroducing the bush into unwanted land.
Trevor maintains that while habitat destruction is among the many causes for Australia’s massive loss in native wildlife, he feels that our introduced predators such as foxes and our strayed and feral pets are also to blame.
By removing these introduced predators from the equation, the breeding of our native wildlife can continue uninterrupted and numbers can begin to increase.
“Without the support of others,we’ll lose these animals in 10 years,” Trevor said of the mountain pygmy possums. “Don’t think others will do it. We’ve caused the impact, by one means or another.”
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