Rebecca holds a Bachelor of Applied Science (Environmental Health) with a Graduate Diploma in Urban and Regional Planning. Rebecca has extensive experience in managing and facilitating environmental projects particularly in relation to local government. Rebecca has exceptional ability in Project Management and stakeholder engagement.
Currently Rebecca manages a portfolio of five Investment Plan projects in the themes of Sustainable Industries, Integrated Water Management and Natural Diversity within the Avon Natural Resource Management Strategy. Work closely with the Delivery Organisations, community and key stakeholders to ensure project outcomes are met and on ground outcomes achieved.
Chris Curnow WWF
Chris is the at times laconic leader of WWF’s Southwest Australia private land manager engagement team. A real country boy, he is a quiet achiever who, like people on the land, gets things done. Chris has been involved in bridging the divide between farmers and environmentalists since he graduated from the University of New England in 1990 with a Bachelor of Natural Resources with Honours.
He has never been afraid to get his hands dirty and this approach has worked in Australia and abroad, where he has advised and worked alongside Mayan and other Amerindian communities in Central and South America before returning home in 2003. Originally from the Eastern States, Chris joined the WWF team in Southwest Australia in 2003. Having fallen in love with the uniqueness of the southwest and the WA Wheatbelt on his first visit while on holidays in 1991, in 2003 Chris was already looking to head west for a nice little convalesce after a recent near-death malarial experience, when the WWF manager position come into view. He took the job and hasn’t looked back. Over six years later, Chris still believes that working with farmers and our other vital land managers is the key to preserving WA’s remaining natural jewels of habitat which is home to a huge number of unique species and some of the rarest and most unusual flora and fauna in the world
Mike Griffiths works for WWF
Mike is a modest fellow who gets a kick out of his job because he loves working with plants, wildlife and real people but mostly because he reckons when he works with private landholders in the wheatbelt he can actually see he is making a difference. Talk to his workmates and they will add another detail to that story, describing him as a walking encyclopedia of Australia’s natural world. And his WA networks are second to none. People say, ‘There’s hardly anyone you meet around the traps who doesn’t know or hasn’t heard of Mike Griffiths!’
That should come as no surprise because he studied biology at Curtin University and then went on to a career in eco tourism and environmental consulting travelling the length and breadth of WA. When not practicing karate, listening to his favourite bands or brushing up on Aboriginal languages, Mike is out there with his camera traps (sometimes collaborating with Phil) trying his luck at getting photos of elusive native animals with the critter cams. “Don’t worry,” he says, “I’m not obsessed about camera trapping, I’m just focused!”
Phil Lewis works for WWF
The call of the country runs strong in Phil. He has worked with livestock on distant sheep stations, in market gardens, on mines far out in the wilds of West Australia and in the rural back blocks with the Water Corporation. But Phil has always been drawn to wildlife and has a keen hands-on understanding of the species that remain in the wheatbelt region. Phil lives on a bush block just outside of the central Wheatbelt town of Wyalkatchem near the old Korrelocking town site. Together with his wife they’ve single handedly identified most of the birds and plants that inhabitat their remnant bush. Having lived in the central Wheatbelt now for over 10 years, Phil’s existing networks and and pragmatic down-to-earth approach to conservation have made him a key WWF asset in establishing conservation covenants in the Southwest Australia Ecoregion.
“I know I’m not going to change the world but I feel great sense of achievement when I am able to support and encourage landholders to fence off and manage their well-loved bushland. It makes you feel you’re doing something worthwhile,” Phil said.
In his spare time, when Phil isn’t bird-watching, capturing rare images of equally rare small marsupials, or investigating cryptic trapdoor spider burrow entrances, you can find Phil out the back tending his weird breeds of chickens or talking them up at the local Ag Show.
Jenny Borger works for WWF
Jenny has worked for WWF previously under the Woodland Watch Project. Originally from North Queensland she moved to WA in 1990 to work for Dept of Agriculture in Moora. Her background was chiefly in soil conservation and soil mapping, moving into flora ID and vegetation surveying since 2002. She has been involved in several projects in the Northern Agricultural Region through work with DEC, WA Landskills, West Midlands Group and various consultancy jobs taking in some of the pastoral country as well. There is a myth that she is a flora geek too, but has provided a home for some of our native fauna (ticks) on many occasions. She rejoined WWF so she could survey with Mike, Phil and Chris again.
Amelia Glass works for Greening Australia
Amelia Glass works as a
Biodiversity Technical Officer with Greening Australia at their Northam office to
co-implement Wheatbelt NRM’s Healthy Bushland Project. She enjoys working with community members and
landholders to help care for our unique environment.
She has a Bachelor of Science in
Biological Science and on completion of her degree spent two years in Moora
with the Moore Catchment Council working as a Natural Resource Management
Officer, helping to manage and promote environmental activities in the region. From here she spent a year in Europe and on
return worked as a Wheat and Barley Breeding Technician at InterGrain Pty Ltd
in Wongan Hills. More recently she’s been working as an Environmental
Consultant in Perth for a small consultancy company.
Amelia is passionate about the WA
Wheatbelt, its communities and travelling the region and contributing to the local
community at a grassroots level. When she’s not working on developing new
environmental projects with farmers she’s listening to the latest indi music or
getting involved in community groups like the local fire brigade.
