Aunty Fran Bodkin at 83 years-old deserves to be recognised not only for this award but also recognised as a Living Treasure in the field of landcare and horticulture. She wrote “Encyclopaedia Botanica” by herself as the sole author and she is now doing a revised edition with over 40,000 plants.

Aunty Fran played a vital role in the establishment of the Mount Annan Royal Botanical Gardens and has helped scores of environmental and landcare groups including North Head Sanctuary Foundation and IndigiGrow who are both focused on conserving the critically endangered Eastern Suburbs Banksia Scrub.

Aunty Fran has done a huge amount of work understanding plant associations and the indigenous use of plants especially their edible and medicinal properties. She is a genius in her field who deserves to be recognised for her lifetime achievements. She is a member of the Stolen Generation having escaped the “men in brown shirts” twelve times as a young girl, developing a phenomenal memory after her father made her memorise the NSW train network as a little girl so she would always find her way home.