RURAL WOMAN OF THE YEAR Director of Birdwood Downs
In August of 1995, Robyn Tredwell was selected Australia's Rural Woman of the Year. Ms. Tredwell, Director of Birdwood Downs, has served as the Chairperson of the West Australia Farmers' Federation for the North Kimberley, the representative for the North Kimberley Region on the Pastural Council of the Farmers' Federation. She has served for three years as the Secretary/Treasurer of the West Kimberley Soil Conservation Committee, and was the deputy representative of West Australia Farmers' Federation to the Zone Control Authority of the Agricultural Protection Board. In 1985 Robyn was appointed General Manager for the 5000 acre (2000 hectare) freehold Birdwood Downs pastoral regeneration project located in Derby, West Australia. She has been responsible for managing the field clearing and cultivation operations, maintaining the roads and equipment, managing the cattle and water systems, and operating the experimental tropical tree system. In 1980 - 1981 Robyn joined an expedition organized by the Institute of Ecotechnics to the Amazon River where, after intensive training, she managed its ethnobotanical collections taken from the field, as well as participating in the collection of more than 350 species. She continued to voyage the sea on the research ship, Heraclitus, on its Around-the-Tropic World Expedition from 1983 - 1985 visiting over 12 different tropical tribal cultures, continuing with her collections of plants of medical and agricultural interest from Central America, Pacific Islands, and Indonesia. In 1978 Robyn went to Nepal where she financed and setup a health clinic for the Bijeswari refugee Tibetan community in Kathmandu. She trained the staff and key community members in health care and worked as a roving medic for the lamasaries in the Kathmandu Valley. In 1975 Robyn received an appointment in Saudi Arabia at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital as a nurse in the neonatal intensive care and maternity department, and she instructed at the first school for nursing in Saudi Arabia. Robyn was raised during the
50's and 60's on a farm in Queensland which dealt in pasture seed,
tropical fruit, and vegetables. Formally trained as a nurse in Brisbane
at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, she did bush nursing in North
Queensland, around Cairns and Cape York Peninsula. She then went to
England where she trained as a midwife and in neonatal intensive care.
She worked on the well known emergency Flying Squad in Britain.
|
