2026 Environment Category Finalist - St Joseph's Primary School, Sorrento
Less than 8% of Victoria's Moonah Woodlands remain. St Joseph's Primary School in Sorrento decided that was worth doing something about.
Partnering with the People and Parks Foundation, students have germinated and propagated Moonah Woodland species, then planted them out at Point Nepean National Park and Whitecliffs Foreshore Reserve alongside rangers, with Nature Links at St Johns Wood Bushland Reserve, and with the Friends of Blairgowrie Foreshore. Working with local ecologist Gidja Lee Walker, students also researched the woodland's ecosystem and designed their own brochure explaining why it matters, launched publicly with Mornington Peninsula Shire councillor Max Patton.
The Mornington Peninsula sits within a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, one of only five in Australia, and the Moonah Woodlands are one of its most threatened plant communities. Students have now propagated and planted more than 1,000 Moonahs, selling tubestock at Sorrento's Ocean Beach Road shopping centre to help fund the next round of plantings.
What the students learned went beyond botany: that protecting a threatened ecosystem means showing up for it repeatedly, and that a brochure written by primary schoolers can change how adults see a woodland they walk past every day.
The X-factor is the cross-generational reach, kids working alongside rangers, ecologists and older volunteers to save something that predates all of them.
Comments