Tuesday, 5 August, 2025
VCAT approves Emerald Shed
Community grows biodiversity at Birdsland
Big art talent at Sherbrooke
Real estate liftout inside
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A Star News Group Publication
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Beloved Joc celebrated By Tanya Steele ‘We dared to believe that anything was possible and that we did indeed have the power to control our own lives to a very large extent,’ – Jocelyn Aytan, 1991. Jocelyn Aytan, one of the founders of Selby Community House and a deeply cherished member of the community, passed away on the evening of Tuesday 17 June, and has left behind a lasting legacy in the hills. A driving force behind the establishment of Selby Community House and an icon in her own right, community members recently came together to honour Jocelyn in a Celebration of her Life. Jocelyn’s son, David Aytan, said the gathering had an enormous amount of love around it. A great conservationist and lover of nature who believed in communal living, Jocelyn was part of a tremendous time of community action and development in Sherbrooke from the early 1970s through to the mid-1980s. Read more on page 8
“Jocelyn’s legacy lives on in every corner of Selby Community House,” said a social media post by the Selby Community House. (Supplied)
Rallying for roos By Matilda McDermott and Mikayla van Loon Kangaroo advocates from across the Yarra Ranges rallied at Lillydale Lake on Saturday, calling for a “democratically” motivated decision to remove the shire area from the current kangaroo harvesting program. The State Government refused the Yarra Ranges Council’s push to see the region exempted from
the 2024-28 harvesting program management plan, citing the council area as having “higher level of kangaroo harvesting activity” than other nearby council areas. Local environmentalists and the Victorian Kangaroo Alliance organised the 2 August rally to turn “anger into action” and show that a large part of the community stand against kangaroo harvesting in the Yarra Ranges.
Leading advocate Peter Preuss said that it would “be too late” to wait until 2028 for the Yarra Ranges to exit the program and would cause irreversible damage to the local landscape. The Kangaroo Harvesting Program is a State Government initiative that enables commercial kangaroo harvesting in areas around Victoria to cull Eastern Grey Kangaroos, reducing their population by up to 10 per cent.
In statement issued by Yarra Ranges Council after the program exemption refusal, the council shared advocate’s concerns. “We share our community’s concerns about the implications of this decision as we recognise the unique environmental and cultural significance of our region and the importance kangaroos have in our municipality,” it read. To read more, go to page 4
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