After a successful inaugural awards program in 2012, global building materials giant HeidelbergCement, the parent company of locally-based supplier Hanson, organised the second Quarry Life Awards in 2014, attracting 400 project proposals from 22 countries.
The proposals were narrowed down to 95 projects selected across five different categories: biodiversity and education, innovation and biodiversity, biodiversity enhancement, raising public awareness, and student project. A national panel of judges then selected the best project in each of their respective countries, while an international judging panel selected the best global projects in each of the five categories as well as a grand prize winner for the best overall project.
From amongst the five local finalists selected to carry out fieldwork between March and September this year, Christopher Jones, a plant ecologist from the University of Melbourne in Victoria, was declared the first prize winner of the 2014 Quarry Life Award for Australia.
Jones, who was awarded €5000 ($AUD7492) for his project at Hanson’s Tweed Sands Lake quarry, told Quarry he had been very surprised by the win due to the high standard of his fellow entrants.
“I thought the entrants consisted of a very diverse group of people, so I was really glad that the judges valued my project,” he said.
Vegetation assessment in quarry management
Jones explained that the objectives of his project were to assess the vegetation at the quarry site and to then use the relevant high quality vegetation as a benchmark for evaluating existing vegetation condition as well as to inform future management.{{image2-a:r-w:300}}
“Existing condition benchmarks as part of the biometric assessment procedure are useful for this, but are low resolution and – in many aspects – insufficient for making detailed comparisons to existing vegetation,” he explained.
“In order to develop a more appropriate and relevant benchmark, assessments of high quality existing vegetation in the vicinity of the target site may be surveyed using the same method as the quarry surveys.”
According to a Hanson spokesperson, the Australian judging panel – which was comprised of Models of Success and Sustainability founder Anne-Maree Huxley, Carbon Zero Solutions founder Dr Martin Blake and Hanson compliance officer Ken Brown – said Jones had produced an “excellent report which found many aspects of the site management plan that could be enhanced”.
“Using pre-disturbed vegetation conditions in the local bio-region is a great benchmarking tool that can guide any site rehabilitation plan by knowing specifically which vegetation to use and the types of habitat that can be created,” the judges were cited as saying.
“The project was conceptually strong and provided a useful approach that can be applied across the industry.”
Australia wins on international stage
The €3000 ($AUD4503) second and €1500 ($AUD2251) third place national prizes were respectively awarded to Kate Stevenson for her research on amphibian colonisation at the artificial Tweed Sands Lake water body, and Sophie Malkin for developing a community engagement framework to improve communication and interaction between quarries and communities.
As this story was going to press, Malkin received an additional €10,000 ($AUD15,008) after being named the international 2014 Quarry Life Award winner for the raising public awareness category. She was recently presented with her cheque and honoured at a ceremony in Prague in the Czech Republic.
A Quarry Life Award press release explained that Malkin’s project “provided quarry managers with practical and flexible step-by-step guidance on how to promote effective local community engagement based on best practice techniques and successful global examples”.
Commenting on the value of entering the international competition, Jones told Quarry that the benefits extended beyond winning the prize money.
“Personally, I thought it was really important for me to do a project outside of my normal day-to-day research, and to focus on something that I was interested in but that I had not previously done a lot of work on,” he said.
“In terms of career prospects and future directions down the track, I think winning the award could be really positive,” Jones added.
The Quarry Life Award aims to increase knowledge of, and further enhance, the biological value of quarry sites. It is organised by global cement and aggregates producer HeidelbergCement, the parent company of Hanson, which supplies heavy building materials to Australia’s construction industry.
More reading
Insects thrive in quarry wetlands
Award to highlight value of quarry sites
Awards for biodiversity in quarries