Elizabeth Goodfellow is the 2018-19 winner of the Yass Area Network John Betts Award. The John Betts Award which was established in 2007 in memory of local Landcare legend John Betts and recognises outstanding service to Landcare. Elizabeth is the first member from Bowning-Bookham Landcare to win this award.
Together, Elizabeth and her husband Mark were among the founding members of the Bowning-Bookham Districts Landcare Group when it was first formed in 2013. Elizabeth has helped to organise many of the Group’s guest speakers, visits, workshops and field days over the years. More recently, Elizabeth helped the Group to win a grant of over $99 000 from the NSW Government Environment Trust for a three year Burrinjuck to Bango Habitat Hops project which aims to establish a network of paddock trees and tree lanes on farms to provide bird and wildlife habitats, as well as soil and agriculture productivity.
Elizabeth is now managing the Habitat Hops Project including supporting landholders to establish and fence paddock trees and shelter belts. The Project has also stimulated the development of the Group’s four Landholder-run nurseries for propagation of seedlings. While Elizabeth manages the Burrinjuck to Bango Habitat Hops project she also gets involved in the sowing, weeding, thinning and general management of plants in the Bowning-Bookham Landcare nurseries and at the regular group workshops. Elizabeth has also used this project to gather Landcare members from around the wider region to explore and decide what positive local actions can be taken to begin adapting farming and conservation efforts to climate change.
While professionally Elizabeth is an organisational change and governance advisor and a company director, her range of skills and interests outside Landcare such as local food, regenerative agriculture and waste reduction show she has a wider passion for community and the environment. Elizabeth is an outstanding recipient of the award, as were the earlier winners of this service award including Ross Webster, Ray Malam and Jacqui Stol.
Always looking to help out local landholders, Elizabeth also asked us to add that there is room for 5-10 more families located between Burrinjuck and Bango in the Habitat Hops project this Autumn and Winter. Landcare supplies trees and fencing funding with the assistance of the NSW Environmental Trust – interested members of the community can contact Elizabeth on 0437 178 357, look for Bowning Bookham Landcare on facebook or the web, or talk to her at the New From Old Stall at the Yass Community Market on the 3rd Saturday of the month.