For this week’s blog article, we will highlight our very inspiring Australian regional coordinator volunteer, Heather Falloon. She joined our team back in 2024, and has since been very active in her role. You can read about Heather’s family tree-planting day, here! 

Heather Falloon.

Heather, is working closely with our friends Mark Allaway and Jill Lancashire (our retired regional coordinators) to turn the Daylesford Dharma School dream into a reality!

You can read more about the Daylesford Dharma School tree-planting project here, in this news article.

In the article below, Heather tells us what inspires and motivates her to #PlantGrowSave!

“Taking action to protect and restore the natural world”

This mission is deeply personal to me. Growing up, I spent part of my childhood in the Californian mountains, living in a Buddhist community near Vajrapani. We lived almost self-sufficiently, growing our own vegetables, drawing water from a windmill, and living in tipis and being home-schooled. Trips to the local village were often delayed by my parents’ insistence on stopping the car to let ants cross the road, or by their passionate condemnation of the tree logging happening across the mountain. Their anger and heartbreak over the destruction of the forest left a lasting impression on me, and, looking back, I can see how those moments shaped my own connection to the environment and a desire to protect it.

As a teenager, I found myself drawn to activism. I remember hearing about a local protest in Devon, England, where eco-activists were living in trees and tunnels to prevent the destruction of ancient woodlands for a new road. Inspired, I organised a benefit concert with my friends to raise funds and awareness for the protesters. We cooked vegetarian chili con carne (chili sin carne) to sell at the concert, promoted the event, and brought together bands and the community to support those on the front lines. While the protesters ultimately lost the battle, their efforts swayed public opinion and influenced policy, halting other major road construction projects in the region for a generation.

Now, as an adult and parent, I feel I’m continuing this mission with GTI. Championing tree planting initiatives in Australia feels like a continuation of the values I’ve carried with me since childhood – taking action to protect and restore the natural world, and inspiring others to do the same.

This project really shows what’s possible when we work together with a shared vision; Together, we can create a world where people are conscious, wise, warm-hearted, and peaceful; a world where we live in harmony with each other, with animals, and with the environment.