Leader: Cheryl Gole

Contributed by Cheryl Gole

Name:  Cheryl Gole

Job (title and organization):
I am the Southwest Australia Ecoregion Manager for WWF-Australia.

Where do you work (city and country):
Perth, Western Australia

Degree(s):
I hold a Bachelor of Arts degree with honours from Curtin University in Western Australia and a post graduate qualification in ornithology from Charles Sturt University in New South Wales.

Describe your research:
I manage multi-disciplinary conservation projects for WWF-Australia. My main responsibility is the coordination of the Southwest Australia Ecoregion Initiative, a consortium of multi-agency and organisation partners who are developing a conservation strategy for Southwest Australia.

What inspires you in your work?
I’m inspired by people who believe passionately in the value of our natural land and seascapes and work hard to ensure we save them for the future. And I’m inspired by those who can at the same time see that social justice is an integral part of what it is to be human.

What are the highlights of your career accomplishments? 
Prior to joining WWF in 2003, I spent some years with Birds Australia, where I coordinated large scale bird survey projects providing baseline information for a range of species. I’ve had a long involvement with a Birds Australia project that protects Carnaby’s Black-Cockatoo, one of Southwest Australia’s threatened endemic parrots. With WWF, I’ve been able to work with projects that deliver incentives for private landholders to encourage the conservation of biodiversity. I managed the State’s first conservation auction to enable farmers to tender to protect biodiversity in broad-scale agricultural landscapes in a semi-arid part of Southwest Australia.

Why is the Global Mediterranean Action Network exciting to you?
The Global Mediterranean Action Network holds out the possibility that people from many backgrounds and from many disciplines in many nations can effectively work together on a global scale by inspiring each other and providing a forum in which problems can be aired and shared ways forward can be identified.

How did your early experiences in nature influence you?
I grew up in small towns in rural Western Australia. My earliest memories of nature are of having the freedom to explore bushland without adults, sometimes many miles from home. It’s a freedom that many children in this part of the world no longer know.

What are your favorite species and/or landscapes?
In Southwest Australia, the largest remaining tracts of woodland are east of the agricultural clearing line, in areas considered too dry for crops. These are my favourite landscapes. When great tracts of woodland tree species such as Gimlet (Eucalyptus salubris) are in flower there is a cacophony of sound from blossom-feeding birds such as Purple-Crowned Lorikeet (Glossopsitta porphyrocephala) and Yellow-plumed Honeyeater (Lichenostomus ornatus). These birds, and many others, have declined across our heavily cleared agricultural regions and many of our remnant woodlands in those cleared areas are silent or resound only to the sounds of birds that have benefited from the actions of modern humans. It gives a whole new meaning to what Rachel Carson called a Silent Spring.

Why are you passionate about conservation?
Conservation is one part of an ethics of care that says we must - and we can - live sustainably on this planet.

What gives you hope?
The changes that I’ve seen in people’s attitudes to conservation and the commitments that people make to sustainable living in the belief that they can make a difference.

What activities do you enjoy in your spare time?
I’m a keen birdwatcher, reader and baker. I’m rejuvenated by spending time in the bush with my partner, inspired by the ability of great writers to constantly bring new perspectives to a complex world, and never tire of watching the transformation of flour, salt and water into one of the great food staples of Earth.