Since our Winter edition in June, the Board of Mulloon Institute has commenced a director renewal process that will involve a public recruitment process in the coming months. In July, the Institute publicly announced that as part of that process: Matt Egerton-Warburton, Carolyn Hall and Kathy Kelly had stepped down as Directors; while Rose Nairn OAM, Robert Purves AM and I had been appointed as Interim Directors.
On behalf of the Institute, its members, partners and supporters, I would like to thank Matt, Carolyn and Kathy for their tireless work as Directors of the Institute over many years. Thank you for welcoming me to the board in January last year, and for your very significant contributions to landscape restoration and rehydration in Australia – and increasingly overseas also.
By way of introduction to the Interim Board, please return to our last Resilience newsletter (Winter 2025), which featured Rose – following her being awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in recognition of her outstanding service to the community: National recognition for Rose Nairn OAM: A Lifetime of Community Service and Impact.
Similarly, Robert brings wonderful experience to the Institute’s Interim Board as both a businessman and environmentalist, who, having had an active business career in public companies, has for the last 20 years spent much of his time on environmental issues. He has served as Chairman/Director of a number of public companies in both health and industrial sectors. Currently, Robert is a board member of Landcare Australia and the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, and a Trustee of Lizard Island Research Station. He is also a former President of WWF-Australia, and a former board member of WWF-International and the Climate Council. In 2004, Robert established the Purves Environmental Fund, which funds numerous environmental initiatives. Robert farms in the Southern Tablelands of NSW, where he has consistently worked to improve degraded landscapes.
Finally, aside from clearly needing to work on achieving the post-nominals of my fellow Directors, I have worked as an environmental lawyer for 25 years in public and private sector roles, focussing on water, carbon, energy and environmental markets and regulation. I joined the inaugural Mulloon pro-bono Law Committee in 2019 and was invited to join the Board in January 2024. I have also been a director of Australia’s first independent environmental markets administrator – Eco-Markets Australia since 2021, and its Chair since August 2024. As my choice of photo, above, reflects, I am passionate about water: whether paddling a canoe on the pond at the Home Farm (or further afield on longer trips), completing a Masters in Environmental Science at the ANU in 2010 or working in Australia’s water and environmental industry.
As noted above, the Institute is currently seeking applications to join its board, (applications are now closed). We look forward to that board and business growth in coming months.
Best wishes for the spring ahead and dare I say, a slightly dryer few months for those of you impacted by the recent winter deluge.
Wilf
Wilfred Finn
Interim Chair