WIDE HORIZONS: Former Hoddles Creek resident, Natalie Holland, has been awarded a Churchill Fellowship for her environmental work and is heading to tBy DION TEASDALE
YEARS of dedication to conservation projects in the Yarra Valley have helped former Hoddles Creek resident, Natalie Holland obtain an international fellowship and funds to travel overseas.
Ms Holland, who grew up in the Upper Yarra and went to school in Lilydale, has been awarded a Churchill Scholarship to research conservation management projects in the United States.
Churchill Fellowships, awarded by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, provide financial support to enable Australians to travel overseas to undertake research or projects not readily available in Australia.
Ms Holland, a conservation stewardship manager with Trust for Nature, an organisation that aims to conserve privately owned nature reserves across the state, is one of 19 Victorians to gain a fellowship this year.
She will head to the US in October for eight weeks and will visit environment management and conservation projects in eight States.
“The fellowship is funding my research into the planning, implementation and stewardship of landscape scale projects for conservation of biodiversity,” Ms Holland said. “I’ll be visiting projects in Wisconsin, Vermont, New York, Washington, Virginia, Colorado, California and North Carolina.”
Ms Holland said the time she spent living and working in the Yarra Valley was an important part of her development as a conservationist. “Growing up in Hoddles Creek we had natural bushland on our property and there was a lot of wildlife around, so my interest in the environment really stems from my childhood,” she said.
After attending secondary school in Lilydale, she studied Natural Resource at Deakin University.
She was also a volunteer guide at Healesville Sanctuary and was involved in projects to protect the Helmeted Honeyeater in the Yellingbo area.
Ms Holland said the fellowship, which will cover the cost of her air travel and living allowance, was a unique opportunity to further her career and benefit local projects.
“I expect that I will be able to apply what I see and learn in the States to the work I do here,” she said.
One local project Ms Holland is actively involved in is the conservation of Wanderslore, an 8.5 hectare property of native bushland at Launching Place bequeathed to the state by former teacher Constance Coleman.
