An opportunity to bring the city and country a bit closer was offered forward on Sunday, 3 May 2009 when FOTE [Friends Of The Environment], in partnership with Carmel Adventist College, held an open day at the campus grounds.

This tied into the Bickley Carmel Harvest Festival supported by the Shire of Kalamunda which is an annual event for the hills area, though the Carmel Sustainable Fair program was an event for FOTE supported by the college. The Shire, through its Environmental officers, had a presence and thanks go them for their efforts.

The campus is set on a very picturesque location in the Perth hills as such a good opportunity for all those who attended.

Special thanks go to Gavin Williams, campus principal, and FOTE wishes to thank Norrie Taylor who is the Estate manager of Carmel college for handling a well managed logistical program on site for the day.

Also acknowledged are staff and students. The students represented their school well by offering forward their stewardship and community services, and especially putting up the tents and taking them back down.

The feed back from visitors was very positive, as well as stall holders who were keen to be involved next year .Gavin Williams was equally supportive for the event to become an annual event.

The theme for the day was Agriculture/Environmental Sustainability which should be on all our minds as an important topic. Through this event it is hoped to create awareness through knowledge. Thanks go to all stall holders, with special thanks to Sharryn Jackson, and Ian Longson, Director General of the Department of Agriculture and Food (pictured below), for judging the student poster competition themed around sustainability.

Jason Chittlebrough offered a very informative presentation on composting representing Composting WA, including the technical process involved in composting as well as questions and answers to the audience presen.t Amazon Soils supported the event as wel, thanks to Tim Richards.

International Compost Awareness Week (ICAW) were well presented by Jason Chittlebrough from Compost WA, which is the peak body looking to bring forward the unification of the composting industry through awareness as evidenced through ICAW which was sponsored by the Department of Environment & Conservation.

Ernie Steiner, a research officer from DAFWA, also gave an exemplary presentation/display on Mediterranean fruit fly which is a major pest of the horticulture industry.The program uses biological control measures to control this pest.

Thanks are also extended to Bill Woods Senior Research officer DAFWA, as manager of the Med fly program, and his team firstly for supporting the display and also the work behind the scene bringing it all together.

Thanks also to go Graham McAlpine from DAFWA for his professional display on European house borer, an invasive pest of the pine industry.

All together at the Department of Agricultural and Food are a lot of dedicated professionals silent achievers who do a lot of brilliant work.

A chance to meet KAPOW [Kids About Protecting Our World ] was had when Sharryn Jackson met Alexander Kidd (pictured below), who is the member of KAPOW who named the group.

Thanks to all concerned are extended from FOTE's Founder, Mr Steve Gibellini.