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Australian Geographic Society news and events
March. April 2020
34 Australian GeographicSociety lends a hand
PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: COURTESY RSPCA SOUTH AUSTRALIA; COURTESY ANDREW HUGHES; PA IMAGES / ALAMY STOCK PHOTOSPONSORSHIPS
Submission deadline
Applications for our project
sponsorships close at midnight
AEST on Thursday 30 April 2020.
Australian scientists, community
organisations and individuals developing
projects in Australia and abroad are
welcome to apply. For details and to
apply, visit our website:
australiangeographic.com.au/societyADVENTURE
Home again
The Swag Family (Nicola, Andrew,
Hope and Wilfy Hughes) are now
home, having completed their
14,011km, 350-day, tandem bike ride
around Australia. “Our journey finished
where it began, on our driveway in the
rural hamlet of Flowerpot, Tasmania,”
Andrew says. “In the intervening
12 months we pedalled some of
Australia’s toughest outback roads
with our three- and five-year-old
children. The spirit of the country and
its people seeped into our tired bones
as we encountered generosity and
hardship in equal measure.”O
UR BEAUTIFUL country has
been scorched by bushfires
since spring last year, and, while
the fires may have eased somewhat, the
work goes on for wildlife carers and
their charges and those communities
trying to recover and rebuild. In early
November we pledged $50,000 to the
unfolding bushfire emergency, with the
promise of the addition of a further
$1 from every purchase from the
Australian Geographic online store until
20 December 2019. Your generosity
helped us to donate almost $60,000 to
various bushfire-affected wildlife relief
organisations. “The Society hopes these
funds can help alleviate some of the
heartache being suffered by the many
Australians affected by these extreme
bushfires and provide support to the
many people working hard to help,”says our Chair, David Haslingden.
Money from the fundraiser will
continue to be dispersed to support
wildlife rescue and rehabilitation, habitat
restoration and communities devastated
by the fires. Thank you to all those
members who generously donated
funds to our appeal.FROM AG TO THE UN
The human swan
In February this year, former AGS
administrator Sacha Dench –
aka ‘the human swan’ after her
7000km paramotor flight following
migrating endangered Bewick’s swans
from the Russian Arctic to the UK in
2016 – was named UN Ambassador
for Migratory Species, at the UN
Convention on the Conservation of
Migratory Species of Wild Animals in
India. Sacha hopes to bring attention
to the plight of migratory bird species
impacted by altered habitats along
vital migration routes.Fundraising update
Mission critical. RSPCA South Australia
animal handler Cher Long, and RSPCA
veterinarian Gayle Kothari, provide urgent
care for an injured koala. Watch a video of
them treating koalas on Kangaroo Island
here: australiangeographic.com.au/ag155