Once inspired by Skippy and Sir David Attenborough, Gloucester’s park rangers Sean Thompson and Peter Beard had the same childhood dreams. Sean however used to get his a little mixed up.
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“I told my grandparents that I wanted to be a bushranger,” the park ranger laughed.
Now in his 20th year of service to national parks as a ranger, Sean must have received some career advice in terms of the differences and recently travelled down to Parliament House to receive his National Medal for 15 years of service as an accredited firefighter working for National Parks and Wildlife. Colleague Peter Beard was unable to attend the ceremony with 30 other national parks and wildlife firefighters to receive his award from the state environment minister but both men agreed they were grateful for the recognition given to their time in the service.
The National Medal was established in 1975 as one of the original elements of the Australian system of honours and awards. After 25 years of service firefighters are given a clasp, and after 35 years a second clasp.
“These National Parks and Wildlife Service firefighters deserved to be recognised for having put themselves at risk to protect lives and properties over the last 15 or more years,” Environment Minister Mr Speakman said.
“The hazard reduction and firefighting efforts of this group of firefighters has helped to protect the people of NSW for decades. These firefighters have fought fires in NSW, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and abroad in the US and Canada. They have mentored, guided and supported local communities in NSW to prepare for fires.”
This is Peter’s 21st year with National Parks. He said his role as a park ranger involves a variety of roles, of which fighting fires is one. As park rangers, Peter and Sean’s jobs encompass duties such as law enforcement, planning of facilities, wildlife issues, threatened species work, pest management work and even marine work.
“I love the variety the job gives me. Firefighting is only one part of it,” Peter said.
Both men have done hundreds of deployments over the years both within NSW and elsewhere.
Gloucester’s National Parks and Wildlife office covers parks around both Gloucester and Dungog shires with 17 reserves and 100,000 hectares. There are four rangers and 15 staff including field officers and two in administration.
They agreed that the hardest part about the role today is balancing conservation needs versus recreation needs.
“Today’s focus is on tourism and providing opportunities to show off why parks are so important but without damaging them,” Peter said.
“There are a lot more four wheel drives around now, which means there is more impact on the parks as more people are accessing them,” Sean said.
For Sean and Peter, these issues make the work all the more interesting.
