Reg Johnson

[1] His father died when he was seven years old; his mother remarried and the family lived in a succession of places in Victoria's Mallee region, with Johnson attending nine different schools.

At the age of 16 he began work as a trainee draughtsman with the Victorian Department of Crown Lands and Survey, in which he was to serve for 37 years apart from his war service.

With other club members he worked hard towards protecting the critically endangered helmeted honeyeater, found only in one small locality 50 km east of Melbourne.

[2] In 1969 Johnson was instrumental in organising the successful campaign to preserve the land now protected in the Little Desert National Park in north-west Victoria.

[2] For many years Johnson, along with Ellen McCulloch, a nature writer and officer of the Bird Observers Club, had lobbied the Victorian Government to sponsor a program to promote and assist in environmental conservation on private land.