Gondwana Link Ltd

Gondwana Link Ltd is a ‘Company Limited by Guarantee’ whose membership consists of groups working to achieve the Link. Gondwana Link Ltd was established on 1 August 2009, formalising the collaboration between groups in place since August 2002. Gondwana Link Ltd is an independent entity; a ‘keeper of the vision’, provider of leadership in achieving the vision and an integrated support network for all involved. Gondwana Link has a Board and a small staff.

Objectives

Under our Constitution:

‘The company is established for the public charitable purposes of protecting and restoring the natural environment across south-western Australia from the wet forests to the edge of the Nullarbor by, without limitation:

- supporting the conduct of research;
- promoting ongoing learning and informed debate about good ecological practices and policies;
- guiding and supporting activities in the area, including development of plans for specific operational areas; and
- developing, holding, maintaining and disseminating information and data on the area.’

This wording was deliberately designed to give us a broad range of ability to act wherever the opportunity to achieve our core purpose was greatest.

Functions

Gondwana Link Ltd. works with a range of groups and others to achieve the Gondwana Link vision. We have six clear functions:

High profile. Ensure the ecological vision for Gondwana Link has such a desirable profile and level of recognition that a wide range of organisations and individuals want to contribute and continue contributing, to the work of achieving that vision.
Funds to achieve tangible outcomes. Work independently and with organisations and individuals to ensure a steady stream of funding and benefits are available to those working to achieve essential parts of the ecological vision for Gondwana Link, with the end result of exponential progress being made against clear targets.
Clear standards. Provide clear ecologically-based standards and measures of success to guide the range of work underway and ensure maximum effectiveness in achieving the overall vision.
Monitoring and evaluation. Establish and operate transparent evaluation processes that enable ready evaluation of the relative worth of various projects and their contribution towards achieving whole of Link objectives.
Critical gaps filled. Identify key gaps in the range of work underway to achieve Gondwana Link and work to fill those gaps effectively but with a minimal ongoing role for Gondwana Link Ltd (i.e. attract new groups or incubate a defined role then exit).
Continuity. Enable the collective effort to survive the ups and downs of area-specific or group-specific work by ensuring that Gondwana Link Ltd is viable and fully functional into the future so it can continue to provide leadership, support, guidance, strategic direction and agreed-on standards.

Principles

“Values-led conservation is … founded on the recognition that action to protect nature happens when arguments are framed in terms that resonate with the combination of imagination, feelings and rationality that guide decision making in people’s everyday lives”. Gaia, the next big idea. Mary Midgley (2001). London.

Our principles encompass both the basic assumptions underpinning Gondwana Link and the standards we apply to our work. They are:

A vastly increased scale of conservation action is essential.
Long term conservation requires the repair of ecological functions and strengthening of resilience and change across all scales and sectors of society.
There is no single solution – environmental diversity requires diversity in approaches.
All steps taken should be useful in themselves, with the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.
Actions should be informed by the best available evidence-based science interpreted through experience and common sense.
Use ongoing and highly adaptive processes rather than pre-determined conservation area designs and strategies.
Clarity on objectives and processes is essential for efficient integration.

Our staff

Keith Bradby OAM
Chief Executive Officer

Keith is a long-time advocate for the ecological values of south-western Australia and the strength of grass roots locally led work. As a community-based activist in the early 1980s he helped halt the clearing of some 3 million hectares of public land for marginal agriculture and as a concerned local hewas involved with establishing some of Australia’s earliest landcare groups. His family background is in the building industry, and as a businessman he has managed beekeeping and native seed businesses, consulted to the mining sector and worked in local enterprise development.

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Margaret Robertson
Comms & Special Projects

Marg’s environmental ethic really got going when she was 10 years old and witnessed the clearing of a much-loved bush area on her family’s farm at Kojonup. Straight from high school she moved to Hobart to join the Tasmanian Wilderness Society’s campaign to save the Franklin River and organised Bob Brown’s national campaign tour in 1982. A range of other environmental campaign work that’s been particularly special to her, including co-ordinating The Wilderness Society’s campaign for the passage of the NSW Wilderness Act (1987); working with Greens’ candidate Christine Milne during her 1989 campaign for election to the Tasmanian State Parliament; co-ordinating a team of pro-bono lawyers representing several conservation groups in legal action to protect iconic WA forest areas from woodchipping in 1994-95; and helping to establish and then co-ordinate the Environment Defenders Office WA, a community legal centre specialising in environmental law.

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Dr Jim Underwood
Connecting Country Coordinator

After a 17-year career of conservation research into the resilience of coral reefs, Jim has recently moved his focus back onto the land to apply his understanding of connectivity and ecosystem health with the Gondwana Link team. Jim spent much of his early life growing up Mt Gibson Station and managed its transition from a pastoral operation to a wildlife sanctuary, so this love and care for Country is has been re-ignited.

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Our Board

Virginia Young, Chair

Virginia has been involved in successful environmental campaigns across Australia since the late 1980s. Prior to this she ran the mining section of the Foreign Investment Division in the Federal Treasury and then her own business. She pioneered a continental scale approach to nature conservation in Australia, called ‘Wild Country’ and has also played a leading role as the Wilderness Society’s National Forest Campaign Co-ordinator in the difficult arena of protecting Australia’s native forests. She has been involved in international climate processes and campaigns since 2007.

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Louise Duxbury

Louise has a PhD Sustainability and Technology Policy Murdoch University. She is a sustainability practitioner and facilitator with thirty years experience in facilitating, developing and implementing environmental initiatives across the Great Southern region and beyond. Louise has worked with all sectors of the South Coast community delivering education and training and projects that build understanding and appreciation of the deep connections between people and places that underpin our social, economic and spiritual wellbeing.

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John Holley

John worked for over 30 years with the WA public service, with his initial years as an economist and financial manager with the Rural Adjustment and Finance Corporation, where he worked to assist and restructure numerous farm businesses. He then spent more than 20 years in landcare and natural resource management, including 12 years as the Director of the State NRM Office. In 1999 John worked with the South African government on establishment of its landcare program. Since retirement in 2018, John has continued to have involvement with a range of local, state and national landcare efforts. He is a member of his local landcare groups, Treasurer of the WA Landcare Network and serves on the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee & Remuneration Committee of the National Landcare Network.