Monique Dawson CEO & Managing Director, Deb Kerr Sponsorships & Grants Leader, Brooke Garas Communications & Information Leader and Tanya Britton Project Coordinator Eastern Victoria.
A new environmental organisation focussed on restoring degraded forests in partnership with Traditional Owners has been established, headed up by former VicForests CEO Monique Dawson. Source: Timberbiz
Ms Dawson said the Healthy Forests Foundation, which is currently in “start-up mode” would be professionally led, science based, and action orientated.
The foundation also has Deb Kerr, the former CEO of the Victoria Forests Product Association on board.
The foundation’s board includes Pentarch chairman Malcolm McComb, Ian Sedger from Allied Natural Wood Enterprises, Richard Conheady, the corporate governance manager at Pentarch, and David Bartlett who was the premier of Tasmania from 2008 to 2011,
The board however is only interim, and the organisation is considering further interim appointments.
Ms Dawson said she had been frustrated by the lack of awareness about what was really needed to make Australia’s forests healthy and resilient.
“The misinformation, mischief and malice in public debate is exhausting and dispiriting,” she said.
“At the same time, Australia is wasting opportunities to get on with the work that is needed to address the real threats to forests and biodiversity – pests, fire and climate change.
“We’ll be providing information about what our forests need and getting on with fixing them.
“We would love for members of this community to sign up as volunteers with the Foundation.
“We’ll do callouts to our volunteers to get involved with our projects including through citizen science activities.
“We’ll also be interested in volunteers who will champion our new positive form of environmentalism.”
According to its website the Foundation will establish and maintain a web-based, publicly accessible library of research and knowledge about forest health, management and repair.
By providing a central repository of accessible information, it will facilitate collaboration between knowledge holders and those wanting to take active steps in restoring forest health.
The Healthy Forests Foundation will work with Traditional Owners, scientists, and local communities to identify priority places that are unhealthy or vulnerable and then design and deliver projects to improve the health and resilience of these places.
“We want forests to be healthy,” Ms Dawson said.
“We believe that humanity has a duty to actually take active steps to look after forests.
“We don’t we don’t believe that we can stand by and watch forests become more and more degraded, burned down, overridden with pests and invasive species.
“We believe humans have a duty to do something about it.”
The Foundation will also become a trusted partner for researchers, knowledge holders and with all levels of government. Through these partnerships the Foundation hopes to provide a test bed for researchers working on finding solutions to restore forest health.
“We want to work with other organizations that are like-minded to form a partnership. Essentially, we want to be part of a network of organizations, because we think there are plenty out that are committed to active forest management and are committed to positive environmentalism, not negative environmentalism,” Ms Dawson said.
The Foundation web site says it is committed to resurgent Indigenous conservation and recognises the deep connection between Indigenous peoples and their ancestral lands, as well as their traditional stewardship practices that have sustained ecosystems for generations.
For more information go to https://healthyforestsfoundation.org/
