LUMEN Summer 2020 - Flipbook - Page 9
LAW
SPECIAL FEATURE
The alumni rising
from the ashes.
STORY BY MICHAELA MCGRATH
O
ver the 2019-20 summer, Kangaroo
Island experienced an outbreak of dry
lightning-induced fires that scorched
almost half of the Island, claiming
countless livestock and wildlife.
Two hundred and forty kilometres away, a separate
bushfire blackened 25,000 hectares of the Adelaide
Hills, decimating a third of its vineyards.
Amid these difficult times, the University of
Adelaide community banded together to support
impacted students, staff and alumni, replacing
perished graduation certificates, and offering
the North Terrace campus' Barr Smith Lawns as
grounds for a Fire Aid fundraising event.
According to the University’s Head Winemaker
Associate Professor Paul Grbin, for the Waite
campus it was a matter of “finding a way to give
back and support the industry that has widely
supported us”.
This support manifested in the Waite campus
offering wine-making facilities to those in need,
along with the volunteer efforts of staff and students
to remove burnt posts, damaged irrigation systems
and burnt vines from bushfire-affected properties.
It was also involved in making small-batch wines in
collaboration with the Adelaide Hills Wine Region
Association to help determine whether or not the
grapes were affected by smoke, and producing some
smoke-affected wines on behalf of Wine Australia
to be used as a resource for training and future
research projects.
ALUMNI MAGAZINE - SUMMER 2020
7
