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Volunteers Help Rebuild Fencing And Shedding

As part of the $5.75 million fencing package announced in early March, the State Government allocated $200,000 for the co-ordination of volunteers in the North East and Gippsland regions to assist fire affected landholders.

By Department of Primary Industries - 27th May 2003 - Back to News

As part of the $5.75 million fencing package announced in early March, the State Government allocated $200,000 for the co-ordination of volunteers in the North East and Gippsland regions to assist fire affected landholders.

While Government resources have been committed to fencing programs focussed along crown land boundaries, volunteer work has concentrated on helping landholders to clear and repair internal fences and other damaged infrastructure on their properties.

In Gippsland, the coordination of volunteers has been undertaken by Rotarians Paul Newnham and John Glass on behalf of the Gippsland Recovery Volunteer sub committee and Kilmany Family Care.

Mr Glass said that the use of a local network of people to help coordinate operations has proved successful and appears to be running smoothly and on target.

"Volunteers are working towards completing the requests for assistance listed on the database provided by the Gippsland Recovery Team via the Gippsland 1800 number and the state wide volunteer data base," Mr Glass said.

"The volunteer effort to date has focussed on assisting with general clean up, removal or repair of damaged or destroyed infrastructure including shedding, yards and fencing. This work has assisted landholders with the reconstruction of both internal and boundary fencing not covered by the Government's Fencing package."

It is estimated that 5000hrs of work has been undertaken and completed by volunteers so far.

Progress to date:

Wulgumerang Area In most cases the requests have been satisfied. All boundary fencing has either been replaced or made good so that livestock are contained within a given perimeter. Work is continuing on assistance with internal fencing. A number of properties across the whole fire ravaged area have lost as many as 75kms of internal fencing which needs to be addressed.

• Swifts Creek Area All requests have now been completed where property owners have asked for assistance. In some cases the property owners bought in contractors to remove debris and construct new boundary fences.

• Omeo and Benambra District This area has been a little slower re-establishing itself, however in the past few weeks great progress has taken place with many properties' needs having now been fully satisfied.

Now that winter is approaching it has been decided by the Gippsland Recovery Volunteer sub committee and Rotary that volunteer work will wind back until late August early September. At which time a call will go out for further volunteer assistance.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com

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