DROMANA Secondary College students have teamed up with the Australian Conservation Foundation’s Mornington group to raise awareness of the need to protect threatened animals and habitats.
ACF’s Dr Jodi Vermaas said the Mornington group was championing the southern brown bandicoot through an art project, and believed involving young people was one of the ways to get people to think of threatened species and how strong laws and enforcement are needed to protect them.
“I approached the school and the school’s head of arts, Jyoti Funston, agreed that this project would fit with their curriculum and is open to all students at the school,” she said.
“It’s really great to see the students so excited to get involved.”
Entries to the art competition were judged on Thursday and Friday (2 and 3 November) after being displayed at the school for a week, with Flinders MP Zoe McKenzie a guest judge.
Vermaas said the southern brown bandicoot was selected as a focus of ACF Mornington’s campaign because it was once common on the peninsula.
It is not thought to still exist on the peninsula any more largely due to habitat loss and predation.
As an environmental lobby group, ACF is heavily involved in education and raising awareness, and is pushing for protection of Australia’s forests, wetlands, reefs and wildlife.
Australia has the highest rate of deforestation in the developed world and has driven more mammals to extinction than any other country.
First published in the Southern Peninsula News – 7 November 2023
