(By Brian Lea)
It is sad that a man like Keith Barber passes on, but Keith certainly made a difference in our community and the environment, especially for our wildlife.

Keith Joined the Birchip Lions club in 1972 and has served his community for 48 years. Throughout this time, Lion Keith would have worked on numerous projects.        

To name just a few: The Senior Citizens’ club rooms, Youth of the Year, catering for many Australia Day breakfasts, and for many years the Senior Citizens’ Christmas dinners, carting loam for the first lawn cemetery area, and also the second section of the lawn cemetery, planted trees at Taylor Park, help run the B&S ball by being on the gate, constructing the BMX track, painting various halls within the shire, man gates at the trots and so on, Red Shield Appeal, mallee stump drives and fund raising for equipment in the Birchip hospital, and playground equipment for kindergarten. 

Tchum lake was another large project, when the Birchip Lions Club joined forces with the former Birchip Apex Club, and community members, to develop the 80 acre lake that is, to this day, a great asset to Birchip. 

Among all the other Lions projects, Keith was involved with is the Lions shelter next to the public toilets and where the VLine bus pulls up. The Birchip Lions Club will really miss this great and long- serving member.

I personally found Lion Keith great to be with in all aspects of Lions, as he was just a happy-go-lucky fellow to have volunteering beside me; always having a fun time being a Lions member working for his community.

Keith, being a full-time farmer, farming with Helen and their two sons, Lachlan and Andrew, still had time to volunteer for various other groups in Birchip. Just a few of them — a founding member of the Birchip Cropping Group, on the cemetery committee, Meals on Wheels, Uniting Church and the re-development of the Historical Railway Station back to a near new building, that is now in constant use.

Landcare
Keith and Helen have been the greatest of volunteers, and another real passion of theirs is Landcare, the environment and wildlife. Landcare was formed nationally about 1989. In Birchip, Keith and Helen were up front, and became the founding leaders of the newly formed Birchip Landcare Group. Keith was president and Helen the treasurer for quite a few years, getting the group up and going, and he was still a very passionate member throughout the 31 years of Landcare in Birchip, right up until his passing on November 10, 2020. 

Environmental Water
When the channel system was to be decommissioned, quite a few years ago, and it fed  some 22,000 dams in this area, a new pipe system was to be installed to supply our domestic and farm water The early design showed that our water supply was to be delivered to  tanks, on farms, and fed to stock and households through poly pipes and there was not going to be any surface water whatsoever. 

Pipe Right
At this stage, Keith and Helen led a large number, some 200,  of equally passionate environmental members, who started to get really angry at the thought of not having any surface water available for our wildlife. 

This is when the Pipe Right group was set up, led by Keith and Helen Barber. The Pipe Right group wanted some water, around our area, for our wildlife, water for recreation lakes and a pipe system large enough to supply a volume of water to a few scattered dams for the environment, recreation lakes, farms and households.

For months and months, Keith and his team of environmental enthusiast attended countless meetings with politicians, community awareness meetings, members of the Wimmera Mallee Water and Mallee CMA. He even had meetings with the personnel who would help the cause, in his own home out on the farm at Kinnabulla.

Allocated Water
The group fought tooth and nail to get the water system that would benefit the Mallee and Wimmera. In the end Pipe Right had its win and 1000mgs of water was allocated to over 30 dams in our area just for the wildlife. No stock were allowed to use the water.

To Helen, Noni, Lachlan, Andrew and families, the Birchip Lions Club and the Birchip Landcare group would like to extend their sincerest condolences on the passing of Keith. He will always be remembered as a hard-working, honest and respectable man, a great Lions member serving his community and a great and enthusiastic Landcare member. Our thoughts are with you all.

Photographs
As a photographer, I think these environmental water dams are the greatest areas to have set aside for our wildlife in the dry Mallee and Wimmera. 

I have had sensor cameras set up on a few of these dams and it is so pleasing to photograph the wildlife that use these dams. 

Photographs on this page show a pelican having a rest before flying on, and the other one of a wedgetailed eagle using a dam. 

I have also photographed countless ducks, pigeons, parrots, and even a goanna coming in for a drink.  With the former channel system there was water in nearly every paddock, so the wildlife could go almost anywhere for water. 

Now, with Pipe Rights success in gaining environmental water, it is like having mini wildlife sanctuaries spread thinly through our dry Mallee area, especially around Birchip.

I would be the first person to thank Keith Barber and his team for what he has done for our wildlife in and around the Birchip area.