Albany Australia Day 2023: Top honour for Geoff Bastyan’s environmental efforts

The continued efforts of Geoff Bastyan to rehabilitate Albany coastal waters have been recognised by the City of Albany awarding him its citizen of the year award. Mr Bastyan has been voluntarily monitoring the Oyster and Princess Royal harbours since 1988, when he discovered that more than 80 per cent of the seagrass had vanished. He told the Advertiser the award was certainly not something he expected for “just doing something you love all your life.” “I grew up on Oyster harbour and from the 1970s onwards, you could really noticed the decline in the environment there,” he said. “Come 1981, I had mapped the seagrasses as a voluntary thing because I could see something was happening. “I repeated that in 1984 and that then led to the Albany Harbour Study out of concern, then in the early 1990s I started dabbling in the restoration side of things.” Since then, he has transplanted hundreds of hectares of seagrass while encouraging residents to plant trees and take care of the precincts around Princess Royal Harbour, Middleton Beach and Oyster Harbour. Albany Mayor Dennis Wellington said Mr Bastyan’s efforts would have a lasting impact well into the future. “It has enabled marine life to return, fishing industries to thrive and the waters of Albany to be cleaner than ever,” he said. “His findings here in Albany have also informed studies across the State. “With his work extending to school science curriculums and university lectures, it is comforting to know that there is a legacy of Geoff’s that will remain for years to come.” Mr Bastyan, who has been self-employed as an environmental consultant since 1995, said he was originally told that the restoration he was working towards would not be achievable. He said the work done to reinvigorate Albany’s aquatic ecosystems reflected a lot of hard work by different people. “There’s still more that needs to be done,” he said. “One of the issues is that we don’t know what exactly has led to the recovery. “We’re having a lot of influence though, so we have to maintain that effort.”