The Water Corporation and the Department of Agriculture have won the 2004 Premier’s Awards for Excellence in Public Sector Management for two projects tackling the environment and indigenous community development.
This is the first time the overall award has been won jointly.
The Water Corporation won for its Busselton Environment Improvement Initiative, which showed that a large impact could be made from a small budget outlay if people worked together.
It involved a unique environmental program to support landowners in Geographe Bay in tackling nutrient discharge from their properties and provides $1 million over five years to fund farm-based pollution reduction programs on a 50-50 funding basis.
The Agriculture Department’s Indigenous Management Support Project was developed to help a remote Aboriginal community in the Kimberley region increase its profitability and sustainability in its pastoral operations.
That project also won a StateWest Achievement award last year and was praised by the United Nations for being the first Government agency in the world to have a fully integrated, long-term strategy considering the economic, environmental, social and cultural sustainability of indigenous people.