Jacqui Hellyer, Sydney Olympics

Jacqui Hellyer is manager of environmental communications for the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG).

Another busy day. I managed to figure out that the 11,000 Olympic torches will release 2.8 tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to a car travelling 9,000 kilometres. In Atlanta the 12,500 torches released 4.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of a car travelling nearly 16,000 kilometres, so we're a little greener on that front. How's that for some Olympic trivia?

I'm still working on the Environment Pavilion, still trying to confirm financial contributions from the last few organisations and sponsors. Once we have that we're set. It looks like one of the sponsors will second a person here to project-manage the whole thing, which would be great, as I couldn't possibly fit that into my schedule as well.

It's good that other organisations help us out financially and with staff. You've already heard about our financial woes, having a tiny budget and only four staff for the Environment Program. Fortunately, there are a lot of companies and organisations that want the "Green Games" to be a success and are willing to help out. Recently we had a new person start with us seconded from the state government to work on waste issues, relieving me of that workload (thank you, state government). I have a fairly regular stream of students working with me -- at the moment one from Boston University. And Landcare Australia has its Olympic Landcare Project Manager working in our office regularly.

I haven't mentioned Olympic Landcare yet -- it's another exciting project we're involved in. Landcare Australia is a nationwide organisation of volunteer groups who do tree planting and other land remediation activities. Landcare came to us with a proposal for an Olympic project to take the "Green Games" concept out of Sydney and around the country by planting at least 2 million trees at 500 sites. We had tree-planting weekends at sites close to each capital city in September 1998 and 1999 and this year there will be a week of tree planting at all 500 sites in August. It's a lot of fun to hop on the free train out to the site and work with all the other volunteers to plant trees. It's so satisfying to watch the original empty site transform and at the end of the day be dotted with little trees and tree guards. And we can be confident there will be a high survival rate as part of the project is to ensure that the trees are well maintained after planting.

There is a lot of tree planting associated with these Games. In addition to Olympic Landcare, I'm also on the Greener Sydney 2000 Committee. This is a group with representatives from local government, state government authories, and Greening Australia, another tree planting organisation, with the aim of greening Sydney for the Games. Since it started in 1995, 3.7 million trees and shrubs have been planted, including about 350,000 by schools and volunteer groups. And of course there are hundreds of thousands of trees planted around Olympic venues, nearly all of them natives -- which is better for the local biodiversity and conserves water as natives are more water tolerent (and I'd also argue that they look better). Sydney Olympic Park will be surrounded by the 440-hectare Millennium Parklands; the equestrian venue is in another major urban parkland; and the regatta centre, shooting centre, and velodrome have also all had major plantings associated with their developments.

But I digress, because I personally have had nothing to do with tree planting at venues, and I am supposed to be writing my diary, not doing a plug for the Green Games (although that is my job, so you'll have to excuse me if I get a little carried away at times).

Today we also had the regular Olympic Environment Forum meeting. This is where we get together every two weeks with Greenpeace, Green Games Watch 2000 (a coalition of green groups), the Environment Protection Authority, and the Olympic Coordination Authority (the government agency overseeing the construction of new venues) to discuss various issues. Greenpeace has been involved since the beginning and we have good relations with them. The Forum is a way of keeping communciation open, so it's run in an informal manner.

Then I had an expected meeting with the Federal Environment Department (another well-funded organisation that is keen to work with us to promote the environment) about becoming involved in National Threatened Species Day. It's a slightly tenuous link, but the Olympic mascots are all unique Australian creatures -- Syd the platypus, Millie the echidna, and Olly the kookaburra -- so it would be good to have them promote the plight of so many of our native species. Now it's a matter of going through all the approval processes to enable this to happen, a job for my able assistant.

And that was my day at work.