Melva has been an active and lively contributor to conservation, throughout her adult life, in the Cradle Valley and beyond.
Citation
Blandfordia Alpine Club: Life Member
Friends of Cradle Valley
Member since inception. Active contributor and advocate for the engagement of Cradle Valley, especially road access and aesthetic management of the valley to preserve conservation values.
Australian Native Plants Society (formally the Society for Growing Australian Plants): Life Member
National Network of people interested in Australia’s native flora, in both conservation and cultivation. Melva has attended national conferences all over Australia to learn more about our diverse habitats and its people. She has shared her depth of botanical knowledge and habitat understanding with others.
In addition, Melva co-authored a handbook: ”Caring for Your Local Reserves” (2005), encouraging people to care for their local habitats, at the municipal level.
Melva documented 30 years of Tasmania’s APNS history and activities (2000).
Tasmanian Greens Party: Life Member
Melva participated in the roots of green politics in Australia, through her active part in the campaign to save Lake Pedder, as the Chairwoman of the Lake Pedder Action Committee and member of the South West Committee. Subsequently, the United Tasmania Group formed in 1972, to enable participation in the political process of environmental protection. The Wilderness Society then formed the platform for the Franklin River Campaign. The Tasmanian Green’s followed strongly after.
She’s continued to take an interest in and support conservation activities through The Wilderness Society, The Australian Conservation Foundation, Tasmanian Land Conservancy and the Greens.
Melva has persistently advocated for the recovery of Lake Pedder, through the Pedder 2000 group, now the Lake Pedder Restoration Committee.
The Tasmanian Women’s Hall of Fame inducted Melva in 2013, in recognition of her numerous contributions to conservation.
Olegas Truchanas Legacy
Melva has been dedicated to making Olegas Truchanas’ inspiring life work and photographs available, to a multitude of requests, over many decades. Over the past 10 years, she has worked with archivists at the Queen Victoria Museum in Launceston, to safely secure a place for this unique collection of precious photographs, which documented unique threatened places in Tasmania and his relationship with this country.
Film: “Wildness” a film by Scott Millwood
Together with Di Dombrovskis, Melva assisted in the research and documentation of Olegas’ and Peter’s relationship and photographic contribution to conservation in Tasmania.
Book: active contributor to Natasha Cicas book “Pedder Dreaming: Olegas Truchanas and a Lost Tasmanian Wilderness” (2011), that documents the lives and work of the artists who loved and defended Lake Pedder.
Book: Committee member of “The World of Olegas Truchanas” by Max Angus (1975) that inspired a great movement of wilderness conservation photography.
Melva continues active networking, advocacy and lobbying for positive change for the environment, through email and regularly attending and contributing to various meetings.
Compiled by Rima, Anita and Nic Truchanas
Melva Truchanas justly deserves to be included in The Kate and Gustav Weindorfer Honours List by the Friends of Cradle Valley.