A fitting farewell at the Barn on Home Farm for a beloved leader and colleague, The Hon. Gary Nairn AO.

As we welcome the summer season we bid a very fond farewell to our late chairman The Hon. Gary Nairn AO. It was with sadness but also the deepest gratitude that Mulloon Institute hosted the State Memorial that provided a fitting farewell to a man held in such high regard by so many. We were supported by Gary’s widow Rose Nairn and his children Ben Nairn and Deb Thomas and the capable team at the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet led by Garry Mills in our efforts to provide a State Memorial for Gary.

A great big thank you must go to Jim Steele and the team at Mulloon Creek Natural Farms and to Mark McPherson for getting the Home Farm ready. Thank you also to members of the Mulloon team particularly Kathy Kelly, Tam Connor, Chris Inskeep and Max Brunswick. The Queanbeyan Rotary Club were just outstanding we could not have done it without them, thank you John and Chris and the team. Thank you as well to all of you who were able to attend.

There were many speakers at the Memorial sharing recollections of their time with Gary. We learned about his humble beginnings and his stellar career in politics and his continued life of service post his political career. As I remarked in my speech “the Mulloon Institute is a stronger organisation because of Gary’s involvement. He trusted me and in living up to that trust he taught me how to be a better person, and a better leader”. Vale The Hon Gary Nairn AO.

The summer has brought success to Mulloon Institute with the outstanding dedication and work of the team seeing significant grant wins. Our grant team including Dr Laura Fisher, Jono Forrest, Nolani McColl, Peter Hazell and I have worked diligently earlier in the year to secure a remarkable range of collaborators and submit outstanding applications directly relating to the grant funding criteria.

We have had success via the Australian Government through funding from the Natural Heritage Trust under the Climate-Smart Agriculture Program. The successful projects include the First Nations co-created Water Stewardship Certificate and the Landscape Function Monitoring Toolkit. We have also been successful with a grant from the Ian Potter Foundation for a project that will support expanding the work we are doing with WaterNSW to deliver landscape rehydration works across the Sydney drinking water catchment. It is titled ‘Growing Communities of Practice for landscape-scale Water Stewardship – a new funding pathway.’ The first workshop for the grants was a resounding success and saw training of our team and celebration, learning and ceremony with our First Nations partners.

Success has come also for the Mulloon Rehydration Initiative (MRI) in the Banksia Foundation’s NSW Sustainability Awards, winning the Biodiversity Award. It was an emotional moment accepting this award on behalf of Mulloon Institute and knowing that our late Chairman would have been very proud of this win. The MRI has been the centrepiece of Mulloon’s work since 2011 and this recognition reflects the incredible hard work and perseverance of our founders Toni and Tony Coote, Project Coordinator Peter Hazell, the Mulloon landholders, the Science Advisory Committee, industry partners HydroTerra and Cibo Labs and the entire Mulloon team who work on and celebrate this project with local, national and international stakeholders. The MRI really is a model that can be scaled up and rolled out across the nation.

We have continued to raise the profile of Mulloon Institute with the Australian public and to deepen our connection to our corporate sponsors Vitasoy Australia. A Vitasoy campaign titled Buy a litre restore a metre2 has had our work featured in radio interviews and even television coverage from the east to the west coast of Australia. The interest in our work for drought resilience and farm productivity from radio stations across the country was clear from the interviews I participated in that were secured by Porter Novelli on behalf of Vitasoy. Our close farming partners including Gerry Carroll, Mulloon Farm NSW and Warren Pensini, Paraway WA and Joel Geoghegan, Bass Coast Landcare Vic, were sought out by their local media outlets to talk about our work. Purchasing Vitasoy milk in November and December from IGA and Foodland stores will see a portion of those profits donated to Mulloon Institute.

In late October we joined fellow regenerative agriculture fans at the Palace Electric Cinemas in Canberra for the screening of Regenerating Life, a film by John Feldman, produced by Susan Davies at Hummingbird Films. The theatre was at capacity and the crowd thoroughly enjoyed the film. There was a very lively question and answer time that followed, that I facilitated and featuring regenerative farmer Gillian Sandbrook from Bibbaringa, James Diack – Farmer Engagement Manager at Soils for Life and Environmental Engineer and Educational Educator, Erin Healy from Mulloon. We were so happy to welcome one of the stars of the film, Walter Jehne to the screening and participation in the Q&A panel. Discussion focused on how people could develop skills themselves and across their communities and particularly school students to help heal and restore landscapes. Thanks again Susan and John for making this Australian filming possible, it was wonderful to see the film on the big screen.

Our planning for delivering on our grant wins continues now at pace as we head toward the Christmas break. Chris Inskeep, our Science Officer, Remote Sensing and Spatial Specialist, and I, with the help of a philanthropic donation care of the Illawong Foundation (Rebecca Gorman and John Sevior) head off to COP 16 of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. So far we have secured three speaking engagements for side events at COP 16; The Economics of Land Degradation Initiative, who are featuring the MRI as the Australian case study in the UN commissioned Global Drought Resilience Report; The Nature Conservancy on Nature-based Solutions and drought resilience; and with long term partners Commonland on the launch of the 4 Returns Framework in Practice: a guidebook for holistic landscape restoration.

Please accept our deepest gratitude for your ongoing support and interest and our best wishes for a safe and happy Christmas.

Carolyn Hall – CEO Managing Director GAICD