C411 Country: Saving Faunal Emblems
In 2025, C411 Country received a Silver Tier Award ($30,000) from the Australian Geographic Society as part of its national Awards for Nature program.
The award recognised the C411 Country – Saving Faunal Emblems project: a landscape-scale, community-driven strategy to secure the future of Victoria’s critically endangered state faunal emblems, the Helmeted Honeyeater and the Leadbeater’s Possum.
The funded project supports reconnecting habitat across priority corridors, engaging local landholders, and embedding Traditional Owner knowledge and cultural values into conservation planning and implementation.
While the award recognises a specific 2025 project, it builds on nearly four decades of sustained community conservation effort to prevent the loss of these species. From the 50 wild Helmeted Honeyeaters remaining in the late 1980s to the fragile but growing populations today, this work reflects long-term collaboration between volunteers, scientists, landholders, government agencies and captive breeding programs.
The Award affirms that ambitious, community-led conservation at landscape scale is both credible and investable.
