A word from Amanda

Catherine Brown. CEO Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation and AEGN board member

The Canadian Environmental Grantmakers Network Conference was an inspiring event  held in a very inspiring setting – the Kinnear Centre for Innovation and Creativity at the Banff Centre.  I have selected a few highlights to share with other AEGN members.

Connecting technology such as AI, blockchain and mobile apps with the solving of environmental problems is an emerging area of interest for some forward-thinking foundations. The WWF Canada watershed project (funded by the Gordon Foundation) and the Acquhacking program (initiated and funded by the de Gaspe Beaubien Foundation) were presented in detail. It was exciting to consider the potential to scale of environmental projects through technology.

Thsaving from extinction of the bison (buffalo) through the Yellowstone to Yukon Y2Y conservation corridor initiative is a decades long project that has been supported by government, community and philanthropy. Long term supporters have included The Calgary Foundation, Vancouver Foundation, Wilburforce Foundation, Woodcock Foundation and Banff Canmore Community Foundation.  The return of bison to Banff National Park is seen as critical from a biodiversity perspective and is also significant from a cultural integrity perspective for local Indigenous nations. The achievements are amazing – including bison being airlifted into Banff National Park by helicopter from Yellowstone National Park. Next year, the bison will roam free in Banff National Park. A quote from the Y2Y website: Today, Y2Y is recognized as one of the planet’s leading mountain conservation initiatives.

The Indigenous nations in Canada are extremely active in renewable energy projects (wind, hydro and solar). Between them they own more than $17 billion in renewable energy assets. Ownership of renewable energy assets is regarded by the indigenous nations as providing opportunities for the democratisation of energy as well as many social, economic and environmental benefits.  The wonderful presentations by Indigenous leaders were powerful and thought provoking.

I was fortunate to take part in a panel on Sustainable Communities with the McConnell Foundation and F20. Future Cities Canada is a major program being led by the McConnell Foundation, Evergreen Foundation and Community Foundations of Canada with many participating partners. An extract from their website explains the program: “Future Cities Canada is a collaborative platform that harnesses the momentum for change already in progress in cities. It brings together people, ideas, platforms and innovations from across sectors to address two of the most pressing issues of our time: inequality and climate change and their consequential challenges facing cities.”

Collaboration is widely accepted as being critical to tackling complex environmental problems. Several excellent presentations dealt with ‘stretch’ collaboration – or working with people you don’t agree with, as articulated by Adam Kahane of Reos Partners (global negotiator), and evaluation approaches suitable to collaborative systems change initiatives. One example of collaboration was the recently announced grant of $102 million from the Manitoba Provincial Government for biodiversity conservation, which will be administered by the Winnipeg Foundation in partnership with the Winnipeg Heritage Conservation Association and the Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corporation. The fund is paid for by carbon-tax revenue. Partnerships between government and philanthropy are clearly growing in Canada.

So, some strong themes of innovation and collaboration and a lot of inspiration to bring back to Australia to share with other environmental Grantmakers.

Philanthropy combined with smart activism can make a huge difference to our environment. On 3 May, new laws were passed to control tree clearing in Queensland. Congratulations and thank you to the AEGN members who backed the campaign with the resources needed to win!

The stakes for this campaign were high, with tens of millions of native animals, birds and reptiles dying every year due to tree clearing. Sediment and pesticide run off from the cleared catchments were polluting the Great Barrier Reef, already under immense pressure due to climate change. And at the same time as the Commonwealth Government was investing $1.4 million in emission reductions, Queensland’s greenhouse gas emissions were skyrocketing.

At the 2017 AEGN conference, Rob Purves spoke passionately about the need to support the campaign to see tree clearing controls reintroduced in Queensland. Philanthropic backing had ensured that earlier land clearing campaigning was successful, resulting in the introduction of tighter clearing controls by the Beatty Government in 2004. But the Newman Government had rolled back the controls and the rates of tree clearing had escalated dramatically since.

We all want wins for the environment more often, so this is a good opportunity to think about the key ingredients that led to success.

The campaign was led by an alliance of key environmental organisations; WWF, The Wilderness Society and Queensland Conservation Council. The Queensland RSPCA also played an important role in highlighting the extraordinary death and suffering of countless animals from tree clearing. Arguably no single organisation working on their own could have achieved the new laws.

The campaign objective was obvious and achievable. Clearing controls reduce the amount of tree clearing. The Queensland Government had tried to reintroduce controls but lacked the numbers to get the legislation through. The numbers changed following the 2017 state election and an opportunity was created.

The alliance planned and executed a professional campaign and they had the resources they needed to pull out all stops. This included big public communications initiatives, citizen science, and direct engagement with government. And this is where the support of AEGN members came in, with a crucial role played by Rob Purves and the Purves Environmental Fund.

When Rob Purves announced that he would commit up to $1 million for the tree clearing campaign, to be matched by AEGN members, the AEGN staff team were very excited– and a little nervous. This was the biggest challenge grant in the AEGN’s history and members only had a few months to raise the funds. But members dug deep, raising $774,500, which was then matched by Rob.

The AEGN is committed to increasing philanthropic support for the environment and this is an excellent test case of what can be achieved when a good plan and competent people are backed by adequate resources.

The tree clearing campaign isn’t over yet, with the clearing controls in NSW the next target. In the meantime, the Queensland victory is worthy of celebration and a good reason to open a bottle of champagne!

We’ve heard a lot about warming oceans in the past couple of decades.  Even to me it always sounded so far off and technical.  To my mind a 2 degree jump in sea temperature was no big deal.  But that was before I saw what it meant.  That’s when it got personal, when it literally hit me where I live.

Here in WA in the summer of 2010-11, we had a serious marine heatwave.  One morning on the central west coast beachwalkers started seeing thousands and thousands of birds along the shoreline.  Birds as far as the eye could see. When they went down to investigate they saw the tideline covered with dead and dying abalone.  Thousands upon thousands of them.  The sea had suddenly gotten too hot for these molluscs.  So they climbed out of the water and off the limestone reefs to escape, only to find themselves, literally out of the frying pan and into the fire, roasting to death on the blinding white sand.  A mass stranding of abalone.  No one had ever seen the like before.

Just think of that – a creature so desperate to escape its own intolerable world it casts itself on a burning shore to die.  The pathos of it.  And think what it might mean for all those other creatures unseen and unnoticed beneath the sunlit surface.  That really got me.  It went deep and hard.  Partly because abalone has been such an important part of my family culture, my diet, my sense of the ocean’s teeming life.  Some of my happiest memories of childhood are about gathering abalone with my parents and siblings.  When I was a kid this shellfish was a staple, growing in such abundance I could fill a string bag with them in ten minutes before school.  We called it muttonfish.  In the 60s, I’m embarrassed to say, we baited our craypots with the stuff.  On our honeymoon my wife and I dived for them.  Abalone was our first meal as a married couple.  In time we showed our kids how to collect them and cook them, just as our parents had taught us.  Over the years we learnt to collect them more sustainably. We had our secret spots, colonies of the mollusc we collected from sparingly and seasonally.  But now, in our part of the world, the population is decimated and the fishery closed for the foreseeable future.

People talk about the boiling-frog moment.  Well, this was mine. Then last summer images started coming back from the Great Barrier Reef showing massive coral bleaching, and I have to confess I really struggled to accept the reality of it.  It wasn’t nearly as close to home, it’s true, but the implications were so much worse.  Not just for me and mine – for all of us.  And once enough time had passed for scientific surveys to show that 22% – near on a quarter of the world’s largest coral reef – was lost, it was pretty hard to pick yourself up and keep going.

Yes, we’d stopped the dumping of dredge spoil on the reef in 2015, a terrific outcome, and I was glad to have had a tiny part in that.  But this?  It was a massive blow, and it came at a time when the national government was undermining climate science and renewable energy, when it and the Queensland government were doing everything in their power to smooth the way for the world’s biggest coal mine, effectively subsidizing the world’s largest reservoir of carbon pollution in the Galilee Basin, just inland from the Reef.    The sick feeling I had watching this unfold – it really got its hooks into me.

But despair is not an option.  Neither is cynicism.  And what’s a nihilist but someone who has nothing and nobody at stake?  Who can afford that sort of cowardice?  Not me.  And not mine.

At moments like these it’s important to remember that we, ordinary citizens, have real power.  We need to remind each other of this.  When people have access to good clean information, when we share knowledge and spread the word, when we give what we can for the common good, when we get organized, we can do mighty things.  I know this because we’ve done it before.  The Franklin Blockade.  In the old-growth forests of WA.  James Price Point. I’ve seen it happen.  I’ve been there to see it unfold at Ningaloo and in the marine parks decision of 2012.  And in the face of mounting horrors these are the moments I steel myself with.

We are at a moment in history in which we’re fighting for the Great Barrier Reef’s very survival.  The reef is now fighting for its life.  The world’s largest living structure, the only one you can see from space, it looks so enormous and robust.  But it needs help.  Right now.  Our seas are warming and growing more acid.   And if a living structure as big as this is in trouble, then we’re all in jeopardy.

I realize that for many Australians, especially those in southern cities, any kind of coral reef seems like a distant reality.  People will still ask, ‘what’s this got to do with me?’

Well, the answer is pretty straightforward.  Our survival as humans depends on the health of the seas.  70% of the earth’s surface is ocean, and when the oceans die life on this planet is no longer viable.  Whether we realize it or not, we’re in a relationship here.  And for the most part during modernity, it’s been an abusive relationship.  Abuse has its roots in a fundamental lack of respect.  That’s a vital part of what we’re trying to turn around in our grand, global re-education project, this multigenerational existential re-framing that people unhelpfully call the ‘green movement’, or ‘environmentalism’.   It’s been about bringing some respect back to our relationship with nature, the world that makes our life possible.  To me that’s just humanism, enlightened self-interest, a change in attitude and stewardship that’s taken hold in my own lifetime and may yet save us from oblivion.

We have come such a long way in our thinking in such a short time. But the natural world is now changing faster than our adaptive response. As citizens, organizations, businesses, governments, we need to think and act faster, more consistently, more concertedly in our mutual long-term interests.  Because we’re getting close to the pointy end, here.  It’s a rescue mission now.  And not just a mission to spare coral.  Because if we can’t save the Barrier Reef we’ve sealed our own fate.  A planet that can’t sustain it’s greatest coral reef will eventually become a place that can’t support human life.  Yes, it’s a rescue mission, alight, but it’s us we’re saving, us and those who come after us.

We’ve been so lucky.  We’re unique creatures, sentient beings, with potent choices.  And a burning will to live and prosper.  A species of genius, with immense capacities and a record of remarkable achievement.  But perhaps our greatest gift is our moral sense.  We have an underlying belief in the common good. Yes, we know we’re lucky.  But we also know that what we do with our good fortune is what defines us.  As individuals, families, nations, as a species.  When it comes to global viability there are no disinterested bystanders – we all have a dog in this race.  Like the abalone, there’s nowhere else for us to go.

We’re at a turning point.  The decisions we make about the Carmichael coal mine will have an impact upon the reef, on our global atmosphere, on the state of our oceans.  When the histories are written about this era let’s hope to God they record the moments when we got it right.   This looks to be one of those moments.  None of us can afford to get this wrong.  Remember, we are creatures of the blue planet.  If we cook ourselves here at home the only other option is a burning beach.

Tim Winton

Catherine is the author of Great Foundations: a 360° guide to building resilient and effective not-for-profit organisations. She has commenced a PhD by practice related research related to philanthropic foundations and innovation at Swinburne University. Catherine has held Victorian Government Board appointments as Chair or Deputy Chair of organisations in health, women’s affairs and cemetery management.

How does the LMCF operate?

We are essentially a community foundation, set up in 1923 by Sir John Swanson, the Lord Mayor of Melbourne at the time. The initial goal of the foundation was to coordinate fundraising for Melbourne’s hospitals, which were struggling to cope with the influx of people returning from the first world war with injuries and other health issues.

Since then we’ve grown through some very large bequests and people donating to us and setting up sub-funds. We now give out close to $10M in grants annually, run programs like Youth in Philanthropy and the Affordable Housing Challenge and provide donor engagement services.

The LMCF is the largest and oldest community foundation in Australia and our corpus and distributions are growing.

The focus areas of the foundation are education & employment, environment & sustainability, health & resilient communities and homelessness & affordable housing. Within this, we have a focus on the big challenges facing Melbourne.

We look at our funding through a climate lens. How can we maintain a great city as the climate changes and becomes more unstable, and how do we stop climate change getting worse and live more sustainably?

When did you develop an interest in the environment?

My whole family has always been interested in the environment. I spent a lot of time in National Parks as a kid. Dad, who is from Kenya, had a goal to visit every National Park in SE Australia. I was a member of the Junior Field Naturalists.

As a lawyer, the first voluntary work I did was to help the Victorian Environment Defenders Office (now Environmental Justice Australia) to obtain DGR status when they set up in 1994.

Can you tell us a little about your early working life?

I started my career in general and commercial law. I liked my work intellectually, but I didn’t feel I was making enough difference. I wanted to do something with more meaning. Then in my mid-twenties I saw a job advertised at the MS Society. From there I spent the next 11 years in not for profit in-house legal and management roles.

What sparked your interest in philanthropy?

While I was CEO of the Brain foundation (now BrainLink) we received funding from The Myer Foundation for a phone support service. The program was on the edge of falling over, but with the grant we were able to re-design and keep it going. It still exists today. That small grant of $30,000 turned the organisation around as we then obtained more re-current funding and developed new programs. I saw that the right philanthropic funding at the right moment could make a big difference.

How did you start your career in philanthropy?

In 1999, I was approached by Helen Morris, who was then the EO of the Sidney Myer Fund. Helen was working with Baillieu Myer to set up the Foundation for Rural & Regional Renewal (FRRR).

Baillieu Myer had an idea that rural Australia, which was facing tough times, would benefit from a national foundation with a rural and regional community and economic development focus. I helped to establish FRRR, including setting up the community foundation program, and have stayed in the philanthropic world ever since!

What is the best piece of advice you’ve been given on running a community foundation?

The Rural Development and Community Foundations Initiative really shifted my thinking on what community foundations can achieve. It was a capacity building program for rural US community foundations, run by the Aspen Institute and funded by The Ford Foundation. I could see that by connecting the financial and social capital in a community you could make a community more resilient and able to tackle its own local challenges. And it really democratises philanthropy – everyone can give as they can and be a philanthropist though a community foundation. It’s a brilliant model.

What trends do you see in philanthropy?

I think we will see more systems philanthropy, where the funding and institutional support goes to strengthen networks of organisations working on similar issues and supports thinking at a bigger level about how issues can be tackled across sectors. For example, the LMCF has funded the Sustain food network, the Transforming Housing partnership and the Homelessness Service Coordination project (since taken on by the State Government).

Philanthropy can fund network infrastructure and support – the glue that gets people together to make things happen.

Do you think philanthropy will grow?

Most likely, but philanthropy has to be agile and respond to new issues to remain relevant. And we need to get better at explaining the impact of what we’ve funded.  If we don’t we will be gazumped by other models, such as social purpose, for-profit organisations and online fee for service crowdfunding campaigns.

We need to preserve the spirit of altruism in Australia. In theory, with the intergenerational transfer of wealth, philanthropy should grow. But it would be nice to think that culturally the commitment to give back would grow too.

What about funding of the environment?

I think that we will see the proportion of philanthropy going to the environment increase. The need to deal with the big environmental challenges now will become a mainstream understanding. These environmental problems are social problems as well. If you don’t have food security, you don’t have good food and you’re hungry. And this impacts everything – you can’t learn at school if you have poor health.

What led you to add a climate lens to LMCF grantmaking?

It was the insight I gained from attending the COP21 Funder Initiative, which was coordinated by the European Climate Foundation and the US Environmental Grantmakers Network. After hearing so many presentations from health experts, Ministers of Health, farmers, and people from the Tuvalu Islands and Madagascar talking about their lived experience of an increased incidence of malaria and sea level rise, it was clear to me that climate change transcends everything. It was also very inspiring to see foundations and cities around the world doing fantastic things and business getting involved.

What are your thoughts on impact investing?

I am a great believer in the Philanthropy Tool Box. Foundations should use tools beyond granting to make a bigger difference. If there are impact investment opportunities that align with our priorities and have solid potential for both a social/environment and financial return, then I think we should look at them.

Are there any recent LMCF-funded projects that you would like to highlight?

I’m particularly proud of our funding of Environmental Justice Australia to work on the Yarra River Protection Act. The funding enabled them to engage community groups all along the river and ensured the voice of the community was heard while the legislation was developed. The Act combines traditional owner knowledge with modern management practices. It’s an amazing piece of legislation for Australia.

The Foodprint Project is another brilliant project. To understand Melbourne’s food bowl and to know that we can produce around 80% of our fruit and vegetables within the peri urban fringe and 41% of all our food is amazing. It’s something to protect as the populations grows. We need to make sure it is drought proof through recycling water.

Why did you join the AEGN Board?

Ive always thought that the AEGN is a very effective organisation. I think that even more now that I am on the board and can see how much a small team achieves. Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation had lots of practical help from the AEGN when we were working on our first strategy for environmental philanthropy and used the Giving Green Guides. I love the clearinghouse and co-funding. It’s a very engaged group of philanthropists and I think Amanda and Jill have done a great leadership job.

I also joined as I have a lot of experience in not for profit governance and with environmental organisations so I thought I could make a contribution.

What makes you worried? I worry about Melbourne’s food bowl. It’s so fundamental. When you hear about farmers going through extreme droughts in other parts of the world you wonder if that could happen to us. I also worry about the health impacts of climate change.

Favourite plant: I have two, both trees.  An Australian native, the Pincushion Hakea and I also love the Forest Pansy.

Favourite animal: My dogs. I have two Labradors, a black 6 year old and a chocolate brown puppy that is 10 weeks old and brings a lot of joy (and chaos!) to the family.

Most amazing holiday: Cycling in the Loire Valley and more recently cycling the Central Otago trail in New Zealand. When I was in my 20s, trekking in Kashmir and Ladakh before the border area was closed.

If you could invent a technology what would it be: Achieving 100% renewable energy at an affordable price for everyone.

You can read Catherine Brown’s blog here.

As the battle escalates between our voices and those of vested interests, our NGOs are increasingly under attack. While AEGN members quite rightly celebrated the federal government’s decision not to proceed with the proposal to oblige environmental DGRs to allocate 25-50% of their donations to environmental remediation, other things were afoot. The day after this decision the new ACNC Commissioner was announced. A number of AEGN members expressed concern about Gary Johns’ appointment to the role, in light of his outspoken criticism of philanthropy and the non- government sector. Philanthropy Australia made a statement responding to this which the AEGN supports. There is also new draft legislation on the table which targets charitable advocacy and bans foreign philanthropic donations for advocacy (see Esther Abram’s article in this newsletter).

So what can you do to keep our NGO sector strong and effective?

The first thing you can do is to use your giving so it supports organisations through this challenging time. A recent paper called What the Green Groups Said: Insights from the UK Environment Sector put out by our sister organisation in the UK, the Environmental Funders Network, has some excellent tips for funders and very closely matches recommendations from surveys of Australian NGOs undertaken by the AEGN.

So, if you are wondering how you can make sure the NGO sector stays strong and effective in 2018 think about these funding options:

• To support a more strategic, responsive, innovative and collaborative sector, funders need to provide more core support with more unrestricted grants and full-cost recovery awarded to organisations over longer-term periods.
• Policy and advocacy work are key to the sector’s effectiveness; they are hard to raise money for and need more grant funding.
• The sector needs investment in communications expertise – in terms of messaging, behaviour change and connecting with people’s values.

The second thing you can do, beyond your giving, is commit to continuing to use your influence to change public policy for the better. Let your family, friends, colleagues and peers know your opinions. The AEGN will be working with all of our members to give you a chance to voice your concerns and articulate your vision and the solutions you know will bring about environmental sustainability. And why not ask your favorite NGO how else you might help them beyond your giving. You never know where this might lead you!

Earlier this year the AEGN visited the Latrobe and Hunter Valleys to learn what is needed to support these communities to achieve a just transition to a new economic future. Justin Maxson, Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation and Lisa Abbott, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, came on the journey with us and shared their deep knowledge of just transitions in the Appalachian region of the US.

We now have two videos available of interviews with Justin, Lisa and Mark Randazzo from the EDGE Funders Alliance. Listen to Sue Matthews of the Mullum Trust in conversation with these leading transitions practitioners, talking about the role for philanthropy and what communities do to drive a just transition.

Environmental charities are made up of people incredibly committed to giving a voice to Australia’s natural world. They cover communities at the forefront of conflict over access to natural resources, including forests, marine environments and rivers. They include indigenous communities, grieving the loss of the plants and animals they shared their lives with for thousands of years. They are filled with young people deeply concerned about the legacy of insufficient action on climate change which they will be left to deal with.

Despite the good work they do, the environment movement is currently under pressure, with their mission being questioned and their Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) status under threat. As the Chair of the Australian Environmental Grantmakers Network (AEGN) and as a funder with considerable experience supporting environmental campaigns, I’m concerned that the environment may be at risk of losing its most passionate and effective voices.

A great strength of philanthropy is our independence and hence our ability and responsibility to tell truth to power. Let me tell you about some of those truths.

The first truth is that Australia’s environment is facing unprecedented threats and challenges, across most environmental indicators.

Earlier this year the AEGN annual conference profiled the 2016 State of Environment Report, produced every five years by the federal government. The results were distressing to hear, with continual loss of precious native species and dangerous climate change making existing problems worse.

Therefore, it is not surprising that environmental charities are campaigning harder than ever. The issues of climate change; biodiversity loss; species extinction; soil erosion and degradation; and polluted air and water are urgent and have implications for every person on this continent.

The second truth is that there are powerful vested interests also campaigning hard to retain their ability to exploit and degrade the natural environment.

In recent years, they have stepped up efforts to sideline or silence campaigns and organisations they perceive as threatening their interests.

For instance, the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) is advocating for changes to the DGR regime that are designed to reduce philanthropic giving to environmental charities that undertake advocacy. They support Treasury’s proposal to compel environment groups to direct up to 50% of their donation income to environmental remediation – like tree planting and weeding – plus ‘legitimate’ education and research activities.

The MCA also proposes consideration of a new tax concession regime based on one installed by the former Progressive Conservative government in Canada, which limits advocacy to a small threshold (like 10% of an organisation’s resources) and compels charities to do onerous administration, classifying and recording every financial transaction in order to comply with this limit. With the election of the Trudeau Liberal government last year, Canada has recently abandoned this approach, however some lobby groups such as the MCA wish to see it exported to Australia.

The Minerals Council is a powerful organisation. It has ready access to key state and federal decision makers and there is a continuing cross-fertilisation of people between the mining lobby and politics. Fossil fuels have advocates in Canberra and the state capitals in ways that threatened species, waterways, bushland and Indigenous and rural communities do not. There is good reason to be concerned that legislation may soon be in front of Parliament that will have an existential impact on advocacy for the environment in this country.

The final truth is that charity law in Australia, through judgements by the High Court and Acts passed in our federal Parliament, supports environment charities and philanthropists who undertake environmental campaigns.

For this to change, a majority will be required in the House of Representatives and the Senate. All of us can inform our political leaders about the significant outcomes that environmental advocacy has achieved, including great national parks on the land and in the ocean; majestic old growth forests; healthier rivers and wetlands; and cleaner cities and towns.

There is great pleasure and pride to be had when a campaign you have supported preserves our unique fauna and flora and retains the wilderness and natural beauty of Australia for future generations. Recently I joined with philanthropic leaders and local communities to prevent unrestricted tree clearing in Queensland that will save tens of millions of native birds, animals and reptiles annually. I’d love you to join us.

Jill Reichstein is Chair of the Australian Environmental Grantmakers Network (AEGN) and the Reichstein Foundation.

This article features in Generosity Magazine.

Tara was an inspirational and passionate advocate for women and girls, action on climate change, protecting our natural world and supporting Indigenous communities. As a philanthropist, AEGN member and AEGN board member Tara influenced many in the funding community to be bold and generous and to work with community organisations with respect, compassion and love. She was a natural leader and although Tara would be the last person to claim that role, many people were drawn to her good judgment, wisdom and fearlessness.

Tara believed in action and making a difference now. She led the way in the concept of ‘giving while you are living’ recently spending down her family Private Ancillary Fund, The Hunt Foundation. After diligently exploring the environmental philanthropic field, Tara understood that climate change was an issue of such importance and urgency that she spent down her foundation in the most effective way she knew – by, amongst other things, supporting 1 Million Women – www.1millionwomen.com.au.

Tara stepped into her role as a philanthropist with an open mind, a generous heart, a view to learning, and with great courage. She very quickly understood the power of philanthropy as a catalyst, convener, grassroots supporter and changemaker. With this knowledge she became a true leader in the philanthropic sector – encouraging, mentoring, prodding and pushing us all to be smart funders and our best selves.

She was always great fun to be with, sharing her ideas, strength and optimism – always with a cheeky glint in her eye and a kind smile.

Tara helped guide the AEGN to be more strategic, bolder and to open our doors and hearts to new friends, especially in Sydney.

Tara was a beautiful soul and special to many people. She will be greatly missed in the AEGN community.

Our deepest sympathies go out to Tara’s family.

The State of the Environment report ensures that the health of Australia’s environment is tracked, reviewed and reported on. It provides recommendations so that policy makers, the public and philanthropy can direct scarce resources and efforts where they are most needed.

The report highlights serious declines since the SoE 2011 in many areas of concern to philanthropists who are members of the AEGN. These include the continued loss of Australia’s unique flora and fauna, land clearing, invasive species and urban development. New and emerging threats are also highlighted, including significant increases in marine waste, particularly micro plastics. However, one area that affects all aspects of humanity is the escalating impact of climate change.

The report demonstrates some improvements, including conservation covenants with private landowners, citizen science and Indigenous Protected Areas. Many of these improvements are the result of individual and community action, often with philanthropic support.

Amanda Martin, CEO of the AEGN said: “A healthy environment is the bedrock of our economy and our wellbeing. Armed with the knowledge presented in the SoE 2016, the AEGN calls upon the philanthropic sector, and those who desire a healthier environment, to be bigger and bolder in their funding. The impact on humanity will be irreversible if we do not act now in a bold and strategic way. Philanthropy has the opportunity to play a key role in turning this around over the next decade.

“It is vital that philanthropy continues to recognise and support leaders who are taking on these environmental challenges. We are equipped with a skilled and effective community sector which is the powerhouse of change, and a scientific sector which is world-renowed for its environmental research and policy application. Philanthropy can support these people and organisations so that they can help lead the transition into a new era where we are not reliant on fossil fuels and can care properly for our natural world.

“Many donors ask the question ‘but what can I do that will make a difference?’ The AEGN, its members and expert advisers can help donors identify solutions where philanthropy can make a difference.”

AEGN member Rob Purves from the Purves Environment Fund said, “After years of funding in the environment, I know that my funds must go to the most important environmental issues in a strategic and targeted way. The State of the Environment report provides a very clear message that climate change, land management and marine plastics are the issues I need to be funding.”

The State of the Environment report will provide the focus of this year’s AEGN conference to be held at Cargo Hall, Melbourne from 2-4 May 2017.

Topics at the AEGN conference will include:

• The big environmental challenges for the next five years
• Where philanthropic funding is best allocated
• Where have we made progress – why and why not?
• The latest on climate, coasts, marine, biodiversity, inland waters and the built environment
• International trends and how we should respond to them
• How we can collaborate and amplify our impact

Speakers will include:

Peter Cosier, Director and Member, Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.

Professor Lesley Hughes, Distinguished Professor of Biology and Pro Vice-Chancellor Research at Macquarie University, Councillor with the Climate Council of Australia.

Doug Humann AM, Chairman, Landcare Australia.

Professor Ian Lowe, Emeritus Professor of Science, Technology and Society at Griffith University.

Professor Jessica Meeuwig, Inaugural Director of the Centre for Marine Futures, University of Western Australia, Conservation Fellow of the Zoological Society of London.

Kelly O’Shannassy, CEO of the Australian Conservation Foundation.

Professor David Schlosberg, Professor of Environmental Politics, Co-director Sydney Environment Institute, Sydney University.

Dr John Spierings, Executive Officer, Reichstein Foundation.

Professor John Thwaites, Chair Monash Sustainable Development Institute and Co-Chair of the Leadership Council of the global Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

Dr Barry Traill, Director, Outback to Oceans Program, Pew Charitable Trusts.

For full conference program and registrations: aegn.org.au/aegn-conference-2017

For more information on the State of the Environment report: soe.environment.gov.au/theme/overview/headlines