CERES is an award-winning not-for-profit sustainability centre located on Wurundjeri land, by the banks of the Merri Creek in Brunswick. It’s a rare Melbourne schoolchild who hasn’t enjoyed an excursion or outing to CERES, or been involved in one of its wide range of education programs. CERES has a broad, multi-faceted reach, with an overall mission to maintain a practical conversation about how we can live well together in a sustainable way. As one small part of this, it encourages schools to reduce their CERES excursion travel emissions by contributing to the purchase of two trees per excursion – and most do.

2020 Plantings

This year, Fifteen Trees has organised CERES’ trees to be planted in the Campaspe Valley in Central Victoria. The trees (152) have been planted at Eucalcama Back Creek and surrounds by Campaspe Valley Landcare to aid in their regeneration projects.

The Campaspe Valley Landcare Group is within the area between the lower reaches of the Coliban and Campaspe Rivers leading to Lake Eppalock. The area includes the town of Redesdale and the Barfold district. It geographic centre is situated approximately 20 km North of Kyneton. The Landcare group is actively involved in projects such as protecting waterways, restoring native vegetation, preserving and enhancing wildlife habitat, building walking tracks and interpretive signage in reserves. They also establish wildlife corridors, biolinks and develop partnerships with community groups e.g. schools, while providing community education about environmental issues.

From this small gesture of mindfulness on the part of Melbourne students and their teachers, a living, breathing change can be created hundreds of kilometres away. And this is the message that sustainable ethical businesses and their not-for-profit partners, like CERES, want to get across – no one is tackling climate change in a vacuum. There are individuals and organisations at all levels, in all parts of the country, taking steps to protect our environmental inheritance. We can all join in. Those trees in the Campaspe Valley have been nurtured by yet another pair of hands. By taking many small steps, and working together, we truly can grow change.

If you are interested in sponsoring one of our tree planting projects, we’d love to talk with you. Please contact Melinda via <[email protected]>

Article by Sarah Hart.

Sarah is an emerging self-taught artist whose passions include the stories and experiences of women and narrative driven creative work. Her aim is to delight, to reveal glimpses of everyday beauty, and to celebrate flights of the ordinary. Sarah works across a range of media, with an abiding interest in pen and ink, mixed media and the human form.