By Clare Le Serve

LONG-time Corinella resident Anwyn Martin will be missed by her family, her friends and her community. She was certainly admired by many and what a legacy she has left to her community.

Anwyn, who died in Cowes last month, aged 86, was a respected scientist. She also ran a few head of cattle and was a long-time member of Bass Coast Landcare.

When I first meet Anwyn, I asked her to help out as president of a committee of management.  Her response –“I’m a scientist. What am I going to do with these people?” 

By Marg Lynn
 
“The most profound and powerful experience I have had in 30 years” is how Bunurong/Boon Wurrung traditional owner Sonia Weston described the Bass Coast Solidarity in Surf Black Lives Matter rally at Eagles Nest beach on June 7.
 
Traditional owners and their allies gathered at sunrise at the beach, between Cape Paterson and Inverloch, to remember Aboriginal deaths in custody and support the Indigenous cause. Sonia’s own life has been affected through her extended family. “Distant cousins are as close to us as immediate family, so we feel the pain deeply,” she said.

Frank Schooneveldt

I’VE read Bass Coast's draft budget papers and am extremely impressed by the comprehensive detail provided by the staff of our Bass Coast Shire. Congratulations to everyone concerned.
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The Bass Coast Shire financials are in extremely good shape. But are the budget and forward estimates adequate to fund infrastructure needs?

The budget and forward estimates are very conservatively framed, e.g. budgeted average equity over the next five years is $730 million, budgeted average debt over the next five years is $28 million, and the average annual interest bill in servicing the debt is $640,000.

​Esteemed local elder Eulalie Brewster looks back on some of the turning points of history she has experienced in her 93 years. 

By Eulalie Brewster

The polio epidemic
 
In 1937, when I was in grade five, the polio epidemic meant that for eight weeks we couldn’t go to school and school lessons came through the post. It must have been spring – October and November – and it felt like a holiday. We spent the time building huts, climbing large tea trees in back garden, reading, helping with chores. We had a big garden for play.  A friend sometimes came to play. Her older sister had a crippled leg from a polio infection some 10 years earlier.​

By Tim O’Brien
 
THE Lang Lang Holden Proving Ground is 877 hectares, slightly more than 2000 acres, most of it preserved bush. In a region which, once densely forested, has now just remnant pockets, the site is a unique parcel of West Gippsland coastal forest.
 
It is ideal for preservation for the environment and as habitat for endangered flora and the wildlife which once ranged this region. With the right government support, it might also be purposed for wildlife tourism, for indigenous culture and education, for complementary leisure activities, and as a research centre and breeding ground for wildlife affected by bushfire. This region is a centre for nature research and internationally famous for its wildlife tourism.

​Given the loss of habitat in the West Gippsland region generally, and the recent vast losses of wildlife and habitat along the length (and inland) of the east coast, the 2000 acres of coastal forest covering this site makes it too valuable an asset to lose “to the property market” – too valuable to the local and broader environment and too important to the threatened species of the Westernport region.