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Wildlife activist named Senior Fellow
She received one of Australia’s highest awards last year and has a 48-hectare bush reserve named after her at Caloundra. Now Jill Chamberlain is set to become an Honorary Senior Fellow of the University of the Sunshine Coast.
The Mooloolaba 77-year-old, who is Sunshine Coast and Hinterland president of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland, said she was looking forward to receiving the “brilliant” honour at the USC ceremony on Wednesday 20 April.
Mrs Chamberlain was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) last year for her service to wildlife preservation, conservation and the community.
“I want to get more people interested in the importance of our environment,” she said. “I’m trying to save as much of our natural bush as possible from development for the sake of wildlife.”
Mrs Chamberlain, who was local secretary of the society for 15 years, is a life member of both the Wildlife Preservation Society and the Sunshine Coast Environment Council and active in groups ranging from FaunaWatch to the regional Wildflower Festival Committee.
“I joined the society soon after moving to Mooloolaba in 1990, after growing up in the English countryside where the woods were part of our lifestyle,” she said.
Her knowledge is self-taught. A member of USC’s Environment Advisory Committee, Mrs Chamberlain conducts monthly surveys of the fauna on campus and is delighted to report recent breeding of water birds such as magpie geese and plumed whistling ducks.
She said the information is recorded on databases to monitor change over time, similar to FaunaWatch which encourages the public to take notice of wildlife in their backyards.
She supports an annual University prize that recognises top students and has been a Meals on Wheels volunteer for 14 years.
Her next campaign is to protect the sensitive Pumicestone Passage catchment from degradation as the proposed Caloundra South development progresses.
USC Vice-Chancellor Professor Greg Hill, who will present four honorary senior fellowships at the University’s 2011 Graduation ceremony, said Mrs Chamberlain was a worthy recipient.
– Julie Gatehouse