Northern Tablelands MP and Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall presents the $1 million cheque to BlazeAid Ebor Camp Co-ordinator Tony Samuel this morning.
Monday, 18 November 2019
NORTHERN Tablelands MP and Minister for Agriculture Adam Marshall has today announced a $1 million cash injection for volunteer organisation BlazeAid, allowing it to continue rebuilding vital farm fences destroyed during the recent devastating bushfires.
Mr Marshall said the State Government funding would alleviate financial pressures on BlazeAid so it could get on with helping farmers get back on their feet.
“Until today BlazeAid has relied solely on the generosity of donors and the individual fire effected landholders to purchase of fencing materials – basically living hand to mouth,” Mr Marshall said.
“This funding will allow the organisation to pay for things like strainer and steel posts and wire meaning it can charge ahead with projects instead of stopping and starting as volunteers wait for donations to come in.
“In all this funding should purchases enough materials for around another 550 kilometres of boundary fencing.
“The NSW Department of Primary Industries (NSW DPI) will deliver the funding and will allow BlazeAid to allocate dollars to any of its camps meaning fire affected landholders across the state will benefit.
“The recovery effort from these fires will be long and hard and I thank BlazeAid for everything its doing to help to ease this burden on farmers who have lost so much.”
BlazeAid Ebor Camp Co-ordinator Tony Samuel said the funding was a great relief for volunteers.
“When it comes to farming stock proof fences are one of the most important pieces of infrastructure someone can have,” Mr Samuel said.
“Today’s announcement is extremely welcome and it gives us an extra pot of money to keep boots on the ground and working continuing.
“At Ebor we have completed 43 jobs, putting up 40 kilometres of fence so far, but there are still about 30 projects still to go.
“Currently we have close to 30 volunteers in our camp and while we are making headway on what’s been an incredibly large fire ground I believe we still have about six months of work ahead of us at Ebor.
“I want to sincerely thank Adam and the State Government for their ongoing support of our work.”