Do you have a passion for the Wet Tropics region, the environment and sustainable agriculture? Do you want to know what goes on inside a boardroom and see first-hand how good governance underpins successful businesses? Terrain NRM is looking for the next ‘emerging leader’ to join its board of directors.

The Emerging Leader program is entering its sixth year, creating an opportunity for a new young leader to take on a 12-month paid mentoring program. ‘Emerging Leaders’ participate in board meetings and learn from Terrain NRM’s directors and its leadership team.

The Board’s Deputy Chair Lucy Friend is a former ‘Emerging Leader’.

“As a young person who had never been on a board before, the role gave me an opportunity to gain practical experience and build confidence,’’ Lucy said.

“I’ve studied governance and read about the theory of being a director but practicing it with the guidance of great mentors gave me the skillset I needed to progress my understanding and my career.

“My ideas and viewpoints were valued, and they contributed to boardroom decisions, so the benefit was mutual.”

Lucy is also North Queensland Airports’ Environmental Manager and a community volunteer across conservation, agriculture, youth support and mental health sectors. She said the Emerging Leader opportunity was open to a wide range of people, and believes diversity is important.

“We’ve had Emerging Leaders from sectors including business, tourism, environment, economic and agricultural,’’ she said.

It has been 20 years since FNQNRM began natural resource management in the Wet Tropics. Why was it established and how have regional NRMs benefitted the environmental sector?

People might be surprised to hear that it was Coalition Prime Minister John Howard who instigated the regional delivery model for natural resource management. The framework was created to solve a problem identified in a mid-term review of the Australian Government’s Natural Heritage Trust.

The Natural Heritage Trust, funded through the sale of Telstra, invested $1.5 billion into Landcare programs in 1997. While it was a significant policy and investment, the mid-term review found the effectiveness of the program was hampered by:

• A scatter gun approach (27 programs, thousands of small grants)
• Not enough science behind funding decisions
• A local approach that didn’t necessarily meet landscape needs
• A lack of defined strategic targets
• Limited monitoring, evaluation, and accountability
• Limited partnerships and cooperation.

As a result, a new concept of ‘regional delivery’ was proposed to tackle landcare issues from a landscape perspective, invest at a regional scale, work collaboratively, build capacity in local communities and enhance knowledge and information.

A network of 56 NRM organisations was set up around the country, with 14 of them in Queensland (now 12). Geographical boundaries were determined by catchments. One of the key reasons for the framework was recognition that each region had its own unique challenges that needed tailored landscape-scale strategies to be effectively managed.

In the Wet Tropics, FNQNRM Inc was established to cover the nine catchments from the Daintree to the Herbert. The business name Terrain NRM was adopted in 2006.

Different organisations, same philosophy

The organisational structure of the original 56 regional NRM organisations varied around the nation. In Queensland they were set up as independent not-for-profit companies. In some of the other states they were attached to local or state governments.

Today, Terrain NRM announces the upcoming appointment of Barry Hunter as Board Chairperson.

Barry succeeds Keith Noble who, after 12 years on the Terrain NRM Board including eight as Chair, has announced that he will retire from the Wet Tropic region’s natural resource management board on 14 November.

Barry was first appointed to the Board in 2018. A descendant of the Djabugay and Jiddabul-speaking people of the Cairns hinterland, his career has included a broad range of roles in government, mining and not–for-profit organisations. He has a passion for working with indigenous land and sea rangers and has consulted on indigenous land management, the carbon industry and community economic development.

Terrain NRM CEO Stewart Christie said he was looking forward to working with Barry in his new role: “Barry brings a wide breadth of knowledge and experience and will provide important continuity for Terrain NRM as we position the organisation for the future. I would also like to thank Keith Noble for his invaluable contribution as chairperson since 2011.”

Outgoing Chair Keith Noble said Terrain NRM was privileged to have Barry on its board.

“A nationally recognised leader in landscape management, Barry also brings a continuous and unbroken connection to the Wet Tropics reaching back thousands of generations,” he said. “His input over five years has been integral to our development, collaborations and future aspirations.”

Barry said he firstly wanted to pay tribute to Keith and his leadership over the past 12 years, during a period where the not-for-profit organisation’s innovative thinking led to ground-breaking projects combining science and local knowledge.

The first indigenous research grant has been awarded through a new Wet Tropics partnership, formed to improve land and water management in the Far North.

Skyrail Rainforest Foundation, Terrain NRM’s Natural Capital Fund, the Wet Tropics Management Authority and Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service have joined forces to create the Wet Tropics Cooperative Research Partnership.

The partnership has awarded a $40,000 grant to CQ University for researchers to work with traditional owners and others in the Atherton Tablelands region.

CQ University Professor of Tourism Bruce Prideaux said the team would establish protocols for a traditional knowledge and science supply database.

“We will be working closely with traditional owners from several groups and with others in the Tablelands community from local government to other land managers, industry and groups like historical societies,’’ he said.

“In this project we’ll be doing the groundwork, learning more about Country and cultural data needs and designing a framework including intellectual property agreements and cultural protocol templates.

“The aim is to combine traditional knowledge and science with western knowledge and science for improved land and sea water management outcomes.”

CQ University’s Joann Schmider, who is a Mamu traditional custodian from the southern Tablelands, said there was a passion to integrate traditional knowledge and practices into management of the Wet Tropics region.

“We sincerely thank each of the funding partners and each of the research partners, and look forward to the exemplary outcomes that these kinds of joint venture approaches can achieve,’’ she said.

Making the Wet Tropics region and its communities more resilient to climate change is a goal of Zsuzsa Banhalmi-Zakar.

Terrain NRM’s newest board director is an expert reviewer of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report, a lecturer in environmental management and an advisor on increasing climate adaptation investment in Australia.

She sees major challenges ahead for the Wet Tropics region in relation to climate change, but also enormous potential in the sustainable finance and green project sectors.

“A lot of people visit our region as tourists, see the incredible biodiversity and potential for green initiatives and have a desire to help make a difference here – but they don’t necessarily know how,’’ she said.

“There is huge potential for climate-resilient and sustainable development goal-aligned initiatives, and bringing stakeholders together is an important way to lead this conversation.”

Dr Banhalmi-Zakar was a member of the Australian Sustainable Finance Initiative and contributed to Australia’s first sustainable finance roadmap released late last year. More locally, she is the Green Finance leader at James Cook University’s Agriculture Transformation Adoption Centre. She also co-leads a project to incentivise water quality improvements in the agriculture sector within the Great Barrier Reef catchment and is a member of the Australian Government’s ‘Blue Carbon Method Working Group’ which seeks to reward landholders for coastal and catchment restoration.

She moved to northern Australia four years ago and said joining the Terrain NRM Board was an exciting opportunity to make a difference in her home region.

Tourism and natural resource management are a natural fit – that’s what Megan Kadic has learnt in her time on Terrain NRM’s Board of Directors as its latest ‘emerging leader’.

The Novotel Cairns Oasis Director of Sales jumped at the opportunity last year and is encouraging others to give it a go, saying time on the board gave her an insight into the importance to the local economy of a strong connection between natural resource management and other sectors.

“Our natural assets underpin so much of our economy – for tourism alone they are valued at $3.5 billion,’’ she said. “For our primary industries they are equally important in terms of soil health and sustainability.’’

Ms Kadic is encouraging young professionals and landholders from across the region’s industry sectors to take advantage of Terrain NRM’s emerging leader opportunity, as advertising begins for the next 12-month mentoring program.

“It has been inspiring – this is a relatively new program that gives younger people in our region the chance to advise and learn in a boardroom setting,’’ she said.

“I’ve been involved in the creation of a new five-year strategic plan for this region and most recently it has been wonderful to see the collaboration between Terrain and over 20 partners from across industry sectors in developing the Tropical North Queensland Green and Blue Economic Stimulus Package proposal in response to the economic impacts of coronavirus on our region.”