Gold Coast landcare champion Wal Mayr has received top landcare honours, being announced as the winner of the 2022 Australian Government Individual Landcarer Award at the National 2022 Landcare Awards.

Wal has been a dedicated landcarer for over 40 years, is the coordinator of Austinville Landcare, and is the President of Watergum, the umbrella group for landcare groups in the Gold Coast Region.

Wal has been a dedicated landcarer for over 40 years. 

Since the 1970s he and his wife have restored their remote 25-hectare degraded property back to its original rainforest habitat, protecting the land in perpetuity as Blue Fig Creek Nature Refuge.

Healthy Land & Water has added its congratulations to Mr Mayr on the well-deserved award. Our team has enjoyed working closely with Wal on a myriad of impactful projects over the years and is pleased to see that his hard work and passion will now reach even more people as the publicity around the award helps inform people about what action is being undertaken on the ground to make a real difference.

Mr Mayr says he is especially inspired and motivated by the young landcarers he has the privilege to work with and is hopeful that this award shows them that by undertaking meaningful environmental work combined with passion, energy, and good management, we can realise our dream of changing society and making a positive environmental impact.

Here is a link to the great speech given by Wal Mayr at the Landcare Australia Awards.