Regional activist, seed grower, former wool farmer, biodiversity broadcaster and artist, Barry Clugston grew up in Rainbow on a wheat and sheep farm. Serving in Vietnam as a national serviceman, he was a trooper in a tank squadron. On returning home he became increasingly involved in environmental matters.
The early-mid 1980s was a time for activism and support for landcare groups as they emerged. Barry led a regional team preparing an Upper Wimmera River Catchment Strategy, perhaps the first community-based exercise of its kind in Australia, certainly it broke new ground in Victoria.
This led to numerous local, regional and state activities, including forming Upper Wimmera Farm Tree Group, which established many landcare groups and also initiated Project Platypus, still running strongly to this day.
He visited regional municipalities to encourage land care works in their shires and seek support to prevent damage to rivers and other waterways. This led to widespread backing for piping the open channel system that dated from the late 19th century. He was appointed to what is now Grampians Wimmera Mallee Water to oversee the piping program. Designed to be finished in 10 years, the multimillion-dollar project was completed in five. The result was 9000 km of enclosed pipe providing water to farms and towns, and a huge reduction in water wastage.
In the early 1980s Barry collaborated with artist, Cate Whitehead, who produced a series of paintings of degraded landscapes in the Pyrenees Ranges and upper Wimmera catchment. This led to an exhibition of landcare paintings in the foyer of the State Bank in Elizabeth Street, Melbourne.
Barry chaired the first State Landcare Council and fundraised for landcare from the corporate sector. He also spent a couple of terms on the Wimmera Catchment Management Authority. He worked with the regional arts community to underline the links between good land management and practical restoration, and music, literature, dance and painting – Barry is himself an artist working in oils.
Later, on the home farm, he pioneered wattle seed production for the bushfood industry. He lives with his family off the grid in the house he built.