Thisforum Was Stage One of the First Major Review of GER Since GER Was Taken out of Government

Great Eastern Ranges Initiative Forum on 19 August and Workshop held on 20 August. Aerial UTS Function Centre,Ultimo.

ThisForum was stage one of the first major review of GER since GER was taken out of Government hands. GER is seeking input to the future directions.

The purpose of the Workshop on day 2, according to CEO Rob Dunn, was “to bring partners and relevant stakeholders together, to review, provide input and explore shifting toward greater partnership orientation, at a regional, State and whole-of-GER scale.

The Workshop provided recommendations around increasing accountability, participation and ownership of partners involved in the GER, so that it is increasingly part of what we do and achievements are acknowledged as contributing to GER outcomes”. Rob’s Communique following the Forum is below.

The current GER ‘delivery mode’ can be viewed as 3 concentric circles:1. the inner core group (managed by Rob Dunn, Gary Howling, and Facilitator support from Tandi Spencer-Smith, plus volunteers who manage finance and Science. Policy. Governance is overseen by a board of reps from national/State NRM bodies and a Science Panel . Rose and Geoff undertake publicity (see photos, video on the GER web site): 2. The Outer circlecomprising regionalpartnerships(now 11) and other regional collaborators.3. LargestCircle includes community and local groups.

The forum, Dinner and the workshop on day 2,were all valuable opportunities to talk with and hear frommany, diverse GER stakeholders and interested parties. K2C’s Tim Wong representing the ACT Govt. spoke about the Mulligans Flat/Goorooyarroo Nature Reserve, as part of the ACT’s active strategy to re-connect native vegetative systems.

The Minister for the Environment, the Hon Rob Stokes, spoke eloquently in support of GER. There were no announcements on funding for regional Facilitators. We understand that if there are to be any funding announcements, they will likelyat the World Parks Congress inNovember or in March 2015inParksWeek. GER is partnering with Pozible under the Landcare and Environment Collection for ‘Crowd funding’ to be launched at the National Landcare conference.

What did become more apparent is that one of K2C’s key roles is promoting and supporting GER as a visionary movement with broad support and involvement.

The presentationson day 1. painted GER as a internationally recognised, iconic initiative which is building on the idea of connecting a unique diversity of ecosystems in high rainfall areas, good soils, with many protected areas and threatened species and systems and near to where most Australians live. Dr Graeme Worboys, Prof Brendan Mackay, Harvey Locke (video) of Yellowstone/Yukon and other speakers spoke of these areas but also stressed the cultural elements, and Joedie Lawler from Ngurra Consulting gave the Indigenous perspective.Rob Dalhunty, NSW Landcare, talked about the role of Landcare in context of 25thanniversary. Dr Veronica Doerr from CSIRO gave her great talk on the need for landscape level monitoring tools.

TheGER Supporters Programwas launched and many new successful stories and a new film will be stored on the GER Web site. GER Supporters can obtain a GER sign for their property gates and K2C has a supply of these. Readers can subscribe to the GER e.newsletter via website.

Workshop on day 2:This was run by the very unusual Allan Parker (co-author ofBeyond Yes).who soon helped us to go beyond the ‘me’ and ‘us’ viewpoint. He pointed out the importance in the growing GER network of looking for the ‘collective’ picture and ‘commonalities’ and to listen to and respect all other views.

The process was exploratory and it was a struggle with getting clear answers to the questions, which were as follows:

1.What are your stories from your GER experience?E.g. Successes, achievements, obstacles you overcame, things you made happen eventhough there were no resources or funds, things that everyone said couldn’t be done and you did?

2.Why is the GER essential to you?

3.How are you currently contributing to the GER?

4.What is important about your contribution?

5.What will help your involvement make a greater difference?

6.How can we improve the current delivery model to expandandincrease the GER impact?

7.How can we be/appear more cohesive to the wider community?

8.What does success look like?

There was general recognition of the great value of an achievable vision such as GER, so that a diversity of players, individuals and now 200 organizations, could feel part of the movement and not working in isolation.

Regional bodies and the mixture of partners vary greatly. Facilitator hosts also vary from Region to region. Some information on most of the regional groupings is available on the GER website. It would be good to see a more detailed rundown of each of the various models operating and how their funds are sourced. There was agreement that our understanding of neighbouring partnerships will need to improve, so we can learn from each other, with the assistance of the GER Regional Facilitators network.

There is a perception that Facilitators can be relied upon to do too many different tasks. Some consortiums divide up the tasks and a partner or other body may even host the Facilitator and volunteers assume many different roles. Many advocated the need for more flexibility in a changing environment, relying more on outside funding and volunteers for various administration roles. Slopes to Summit seem to rely on a series of major projects each covering a particular target area. The Gondwana corridors movement in WA (Kurt Bradby) rep pointed out how that movement had shifted to “self-organised” funding models largely independent of government. Coordinating bodies avoid intruding on partner organisation’s territory.

Lack of certainty of Facilitation funding from next year, without announcements in the near future seemed generally to be a serious dilemma.

Other groupings seem to be ahead of us in terms of identifying key priority areas to target, (but of course we are heading there, with support from the Local Land Service.

New Zealand, (no states) have Statutory Regional Authorities akin to local councils (or perhaps our LLSs), where available funding is allocated to various Landcare groupings “sitting around the table”.

Where from Here?How can we individually and collectively continue this conversation? (Rob suggested we may have only “scratched the surface”).

GER Forum communiqué from CER Rob Dunn:

Hi everyone

Many thanks to everyone who attended this week’s Great Eastern Ranges Initiative Forum, dinner and/or Workshop and contributed so much to their success.

This was made possible thanks to:

·  Penny’s MCing, inspiring speakers, videos, a great turn-out, a diverse and engaged audience at the Forum

·  The willingness of attendees to mix and mingle at the Forum

·  A great turn-out also at the dinner and Workshop

·  The facilitation of the Workshop by Allan Parker

·  The attendance and speeches by Minister Stokes at the Forum and Minister Powell at the dinner

·  The amazing work behind the scenes and on both days by our regional partnership facilitators

·  The tireless efforts over several weeks of the GER central team

·  & to you all for generously giving up their time, especially those who came in from interstate and from regional NSW

This week has raised a number of exciting possibilities for GER. But of course we still have work to do to assess these properly.

So where to from here?

1.  On Wednesday the Lead Partners Group are meeting by phone to agree on the process to progress the ideas from the Workshop

2.  Over the next couple of weeks Allan Parker will consolidate everyone’s input on Wednesday

3.  The Lead Partners will meet later next month to consider the comments from the Workshop and confirm the steps to make sure we maintain the momentum

I will let you know the outcomes of this meeting and provide updates as things progress.

In the meantime, what else can you do?

·  Firstly, please continue your conversations around the Workshop’s original aims and questions and feed back your comments to me

·  Secondly, email me just a couple of sentences on the key messages that you took away from both the Forum and the Workshop. I have received these three so far:

o  It was great to be surrounded by so many experienced people and all round ‘good thinkers’. I have come away feeling very inspired about the GER concept. Leigh Blackmore, Project Platypus

o  Though a mere pinprick in the scheme of things it’s great to feel that my labours are contributing to the inspiring big picture GER initiative. Mandy Wilson, landowner near Goulburn

o  Hard to believe so much has been achieved in so short a time. Prof. John Rodger, University of Newcastle

I would like to put some of these up on our website and forward them on to Minster Stokes.

Many thanks once again, Rob

Rob Dunn

CEO

Great Eastern Ranges Initiative

0438 250 600

www.greateasternranges.org.au

PO Box 295 Vincentia NSW 2540