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The Board are elected at the Conservation Council's Annual General Meeting held in November of each year. Membership of the Board is drawn from the member groups. The Conservation Council is also able to co-optmembers to the Board to draw on their individual expertise and skills.
About the Board members
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Nick Tebbey, President
Nick is a lawyer and registered Migration Agent in the Business Services division of Snedden Hall & Gallop, where he currently practices in areas including corporate governance, intellectual property and contract law. Nick has worked with Snedden Hall & Gallop since July 2002 and was the recipient of the Snedden Hall & Gallop Legal Studies Scholarship in 2000. He is also a consulting lecturer at the Australian National University in its Graduate Certificate in Migration Law and Practice. He was named Young Lawyer of the Year for 2009.
Nick has a passion for conservation, dating back to his involvement with the Australian Youth Parliament for the Environment while he was in high school. Nick’s keen interest is in generating greater awareness and understanding within the community.
He is also a registered volunteer for the Starlight Children’s Foundation, devoting some of his spare time to furthering their cause and helping to brighten the lives of sick children in Canberra. He also likes to enjoy a good wine and is a keen traveller, with a taste for thrills and adventure.
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Jenny Bounds, Vice-President
Jenny is a passionate ornithologist involved in regional and local bird monitoring and conservation issues. Jenny is involved in several bird conservation projects, e.g. the National Recovery Project for the threatened Regent Honeyeater in NSW as well as the Canberra Ornithologists Group’s (COG) Woodland Bird Monitoring project. Jenny has an interest in communication and education as a means to promote birds and conservation: she writes a newsletter for the Capertee Valley Regent Honeyeater project; has produced a tourist brochure ‘Pocket Guide - Birds of Canberra’; designed the Mulligan’s Flat NR Bird Walk, and coordinated public seminars for COG on woodland birds research and conservation.
At various times Jenny has been President of the Field Naturalists Association of Canberra and Canberra Ornithologists Group. Her portfolio interests in the Conservation Council are biodiversity (woodlands) which encompasses planning. She was active in the East O’Malley campaign, and North Gungahlin planning issues, including the ‘Options Paper’ for controlling cats in new suburbs abutting nature reserves.
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Ian Falconer, Vice-President
Ian is an Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry. His research for thirty years has been into water quality, after sampling Armidale’s drinking water, which at the time contained toxic blue-green algae! Ian is a member of the scientific advisory committee for Water Quality Research Australia, the water industry research body. He is also a member of the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aging advisory group on chemical safety and the recently appointed Basin Community Committee, which advises the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the Ministerial Council on water resource issues in the Basin.
Ian is a committee member of Friends of the Aranda Bushland, and edited the Second Edition of ‘Our Patch’, the flora of the ACT photographed in Aranda Bushland. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for science in 2006.
Ian came to Canberra with his wife Mary in 1997, after retiring as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at the University of Adelaide. Prior to Adelaide, Ian was Executive Dean of Sciences at the University of New England, Armidale, a faculty comprising science, rural science and natural resources, and part-time Pro-Vice Chancellor.
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Rod Griffiths, Treasurer
Rod has been involved with the Conservation Council since 1994 and the environment movement since 1983. He has a specific in interest in reserve management but is willing to embrace any environmental issue of importance. He is the Conservation Council’s current Treasurer a position he also held between 1995 and 2001.
He has been a national council member of the Australian Conservation Foundation; a member of an ACT ministerial environmental advisory group; has chaired the ACT Environment Grants sub-committee; sat on governmental committees on landcare and reserves; and was a major contributor to the ACT Environmental Law Handbook. He has also been the treasurer of the Environmental Defender’s Office and the Canberra branch of the ACF and is currently the treasurer of the National Parks Association of the ACT.
Rod has a passion for bushwalking and is a very poor “twitcher”. He can be regularly found sweating profusely commuting to work by bicycle.
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Christine Goonrey, Secretary
Christine is currently President of the Conservation Council of the ACT Region; the National Parks Association of the ACT and the National Parks Australia Council. She is a member of the ACT Bushfire Council and is a member of the World Commission on Protected Areas.
Prior to retirement she spent more than fifteen years working on social justice, housing and family policy in the Federal government and prior to that was a secondary school teacher. For many years she has enjoyed bushwalking and outdoor activities with her family and since retirement has spent her time working to protect Australia’s unique biodiversity through her volunteer work. Her particular passion is finding native orchids in their natural settings in the ACT and surrounding regions.
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Leon Arundell
Leon has tertiary qualifications in science, environmental studies and economics. He convenes the Canberra Pedestrian Forum and chairs the North Canberra Community Council.
He came to Canberra from western Victoria via Sydney, Tasmania and Melbourne. Together with his now wife Robyn, he coordinated manpower for the 1982 ACT House of Assembly election campaign for the Franklin River. He subsequently served as President of the ACT Branch of the Australian and New Zealand Solar Energy Society, Vice President of Pedal Power, and Secretary of Climate Action Canberra. His 25 years of public sector experience covered energy, transport, forestry, minerals, fisheries and climate change.
Leon believes that global warming is Australia's biggest environmental challenge, and also that we need to continually question our assumptions. His research has corrected misconceptions such as that walking, cycling and ACTION buses produce negligible greenhouse emissions. He is working to have Canberra re-shaped, so that we will have less need for car travel.
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Karen Billington
Karen is the Sustainability Technical Manager for Northrop Consulting Engineers. Karen holds a Masters of the Built Environment (Sustainable Development), a Bachelor of Engineering (Environmental) and is currently pursing further studies within the Architecture faculty at the University of Canberra. Karen specialises in the area of sustainability master planning, project sustainability briefs, cost/benefit feasibility analysis, Green Star certifications, NABERS/CBD assessments. NatHERS/EER assessments and building performance simulations (including energy modelling). Karen’s consulting experience includes projects in the following built environment sectors: precinct/communities, mixed use, residential, commercial, educational, open space, aged care, agricultural, hospital, defence, landfill, chemical and brick manufacture, and service station.
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Christopher Dorman
Christopher has moved on from his initial career as a hydroelectric engineer in Papua New Guinea through violin making to teaching in electronics, science and mathematics. He is president of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) for the ACT region. Deeply concerned about our local and world environment, he attends many events in Canberra with like-minded citizens. His doctorate in risk engineering would explain why he pays attention to the big risks around food security, the sale of farming land to non-residents, the consequences of peak oil (which has already occurred) and the risks around future nuclear generated power, previous disasters having been neatly papered over. The accelerating speed of world and local environmental destruction, since 2005 (his nominated date) is of awesome proportion. He takes his own advice as a practicing naturopath and does serious exercise 6 days a week.
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Jasmin Logg-Scarvell
Jasmin is a recent honours graduate in sustainability (human ecology) from ANU, where she is still active in numerous student environmental groups. She has been interested in regional conservation issues since childhood, working with her grandparents and the member group Friends of Aranda Bushland. She is commencing a graduate program in the federal Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency in 2012, where she hopes to continue building links in the conservation sector.
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Peter Ottensen
Peter has many years of policy and management experience in the public and private sectors within the agricultural, environment, protected area management (marine and terrestrial), commercial fisheries, tourism, transport, waste management, water, energy, urban planning, sport and event management industries.
He has held positions in the Australian, Canadian, NSW and ACT governments, including the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the Canadian Parks Service, and the ACT government’s Office of Sustainability. A career highlight was his five years with the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games where he established and led its Environment Program. He currently works in the Australian government’s Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.
Since 2000, Peter has been an honorary board member of the Banksia Environmental Foundation, a leading Australian not-for-profit organisation that identifies and rewards environmental excellence.
He has a BSc degree in Marine Ecology (Hons, James Cook University) and a MSc degree in Natural Resource Management (University of Western Australia).
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Glenys Patulny
Glenys has been chair of the Southern ACT Catchment Group since 2006. During that time Glenys has supported and helped Landcare and Waterwatch groups in her region. Glenys has been Deputy Principal of a large high school which won a number of ACT National Landcare awards for involving its students in many environmental practices – with thousands of students over many years planting thousands of trees around the school and at many other places. Glenys taught horticulture (attending a Permaculture course to further my knowledge) and was responsible for the building of a greenhouse in the school which grew plants not only for the school but for other Landcare groups.
As Chair of a catchment group on the Murrumbidgee Glenys is a member of Murrumbidgee Landcare Inc and represents them at Landcare NSW. As a member of the ACT Catchment Landcare Association (CLA) and Glenys is also the ACT's representative to the National Landcare Network (NLN). Lastly, Glenys is also an active member of the Tuggeranong Community Council.
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Helen Sims
Helen’s knowledge of the ACT’s environment was derived from her work for 13 years as the inaugural manager of the ACT’s Office of the Commissioner for the Environment. She had the honour of working with the first two commissioners - Dr Joe Baker and Dr Rosemary Purdie - on multiple State of the Environment reports for both the ACT and the 17 local governments in the Australian Capital Region. Helen also undertook a variety of investigations into management of the environment by ACT Government agencies.
She previously worked on development of the ACT Land (Planning and Environment) Act 1993 following self-government and on leasing of rural and national land in the ACT.
Helen has enjoyed bushwalking for several decades and takes great pleasure in walking among our native birds and animals. She is also passionate about reducing waste and use of resources. Her doctorate is in sociology from the University of Queensland (1988).
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Bren Weatherstone
Bren is an expert in environmental education with experience in both community engagement and formal education. She has experience in using drama to explore and express environmental and social concerns addressing topics such as bushfires and consumption harmful to the environment. She has a Masters in Environmental Education which focussed on the barriers to green purchasing experienced by ACT consumers.
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Board
