Parks Victoria - Annual Report 2009-10

eakout overset copyHEALTHY PEOPLEcommunities. Students were trained in tour guidingand coastal environments and will now provide guidedtours to members of their community. The BilingualTour Guides course is a partnership betweenNorthern Melbourne Institute of TAFE, the FederalGovernment’s Caring for our Country grants programand Parks Victoria.QUARANTINE STATION REVISITEDEarlier in the year, Rosa Miot visited PointNepean Quarantine Station for the first timesince she and her family arrived in Australiaby boat in 1952. The place has a particularsignificance for her. Rosa, her brother, Pasquale,and their mother had an unscheduled stopthere on their voyage to Melbourne to join therest of the family.Rosa, who was five at the time, has a hazyrecollection of the Quarantine Station as astrange place with large gloomy buildings.Pasquale has much stronger memories of thiscold winter’s day on Port Philip Bay.“As an eight-year-old, I have a clearrecollection of being passed down a ropeladder by other passengers, and my mother’sanguish that I might fall in the water, put intoa small boat and taken to a building whichfaced the water. Our clothes were taken fromus and we were given a blanket to keep warmin front of an open fire. After a couple ofhours our clothes were returned. We werethen taken back to the ship and the followingmorning arrived at Station Pier.”Other examples of programs and activities ParksVictoria participated in include:❚ Working with the Victorian Multicultural Commissionto promote parks. As part of this partnership, ParksVictoria held a forum for Melbourne’s Africancommunity, attended the Viva Victoria festival andsponsored Cultural Diversity Week❚ Celebrating Cultural Diversity Week with the Cityof Whittlesea. A cultural event – ‘Jindi Worabak’ (tounite) – was held at Hawkstowe Picnic Area in PlentyGorge Park, bringing together different culturalgroups and celebrating Aboriginal traditions❚ Holding a multicultural day as part of the TwoBays program. People from 18 different nationscelebrated Australia Day on board the Pelican 1,sailing around Port Phillip Bay❚ Supporting the Thomastown Turkish Women’sRecreational Group in a multicultural art projectusing traditional Turkish handwork to illustrateVictoria’s native animals and plants.Visitor researchThe Community Perception Monitor is undertakenon alternate years to gather information from thecommunity about Parks Victoria’s management ofparks. The majority of indicators remained stablein 2010. Two indicators experienced small butsignificant declines:❚ Parks Victoria as a management of national, state,regional parks and conservation reserves (-5 per cent)❚ Parks Victoria as an efficient manager (-5 per cent).Rosa is delighted that the Quarantine Station hasbeen so well preserved and is now open to thepublic. She is happy it is being promoted as animportant historical site that is also educational,especially for the future generations of thosewhose parents migrated here.The 2009 bushfires are likely to have had a negativeimpact on community perception of Parks Victoria, aswas seen after the 2003 bushfires. These issues relateto the perception of Parks Victoria’s managementof fire prevention and fire control. These declinesdid not affect visitation, which remained withinthe target range.28 Parks Victoria - Annual Report 2009-10