Community & Business
9 September, 2025
Environmentalists receive award at DDEC AGM
Two local environmental groups received awards at the Darling Downs Environmental Council’s (DDEC) recent Annual General Meeting in Toowoomba.
Over the past two years, landowners in the Goombungee district came to know the names of Toni Gorry and the Gomaren and Doctors Creek Catchment Landcare Group (GDCCLG).
The group, based at Goombungee, was recognised as “Koala Krusaders” for its work in planting 6,000 koala food trees on farms across the district thanks to a Federal Government grant.
Earlier this year, the group held engagement workshops in Goombungee and at Cutella, enabling locals to get up close with koalas.
“(GDCCLG) linked vital wildlife corridors, and engaged hundreds of residents in habitat restoration and environ-mental education,” a DDEC spokesperson said.
“Their work ensures future generations might still see koalas in the wild.”
Another figure best known to Oakey locals from the ‘Mining Wars’ of the 2010s was recognised at the ceremony.
Former President of the Oakey Coal Action Alliance (OCAA) Aileen Harrison was hailed as a “Local Legend of the Land Court” for her work advocating the rights of farmers over mining.
“For more than a decade, Aileen Harrison led the Oakey Coal Action Alliance in a landmark fight to protect prime agricultural and strategic cropping land from coal mining,” a DDEC spokesperson said.
Although ultimately unsuccessful in its bid to stop mining expansion, the pressure from OCAA, founded by residents Reg Pascoe and Nikki Laws in 2012, drew national attention to the New Acland Stage 3 Land Court case.
