ANPC Annual General Meeting held Wednesday 29 November 2017
The Annual General Meeting of the Australian Network for Plant Conservation Inc. (ANPC) was held on Wednesday 29 November 2017 at the Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra.
Linda Broadhurst was renominated as President and Bob Makinson as Vice-President.
We welcome Chris Ikin as our new Treasurer and Andrew Crawford, Selga Harrington and Kylie Moritz as new Ordinary Members of the ANPC Management Committee and thank them for their nominations.
Kate Brown, David Coates, Paul Gibson-Roy and Maria Matthes were renominated as Ordinary Members.
Many thanks to Doug Bickerton, Anne Cochrane and Natalie Tapson who stepped down from the committee this year, and to Merryl Bradley who retired from the Treasurer position after 4 years.
Click here to read the President's Report on what the ANPC has achieved over 2017.
President |
Director, Australian National Herbarium |
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Vice President |
Principal Consultant |
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Secretary |
Research Scientist, Plant Science and Herbarium Program |
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Treasurer |
Canberra, ACT |
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Committee members |
Ecologist |
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Senior Principal Research Scientist |
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Research Scientist, Threatened Flora Seed Centre |
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Environmental Consultant |
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| Dr Paul Gibson Roy |
Lead Scientist |
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Native vegetation consultant |
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Principal Ecologist |
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Environmental consultant |
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Senior Project Officer, Threatened Flora |
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Principal Research Scientist |
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Ex-Officio member |
Rewi Elliot |
Secretary, New Zealand Plant Conservation Network |
Dr Linda Broadhurst - President
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Bob Makinson - Vice President
Bob was employed as Conservation Botanist with the Royal Botanic Gardens & Domain Trust, Sydney for over 30 years working in plant taxonomy, herbarium management, wild-plant conservation science and practice, and science internship (volunteer) program development. He is a former Curator of the Australian National Herbarium (Canberra), and a former member of the NSW Scientific Committee (for extinction-risk assessment of species and ecological communities). He has been an active ANPC member since 1992 and is a past president. Bob is a regular presenter at ANPC workshops and wrote and presented the recent Myrtle Rust workshops. Bob is currently undertaking the Myrtle Rust `Review of Environmental Impacts & Action Plan' project, co-funded by the Plant Biosecurity Cooperative Research Centre and the Threatened Species Recovery Hub. |
Dr Melissa Millar - Secretary
Melissa is a Research Scientist with the Plant Science and Herbarium Program of the WA Department of Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, where her chief responsibilities are to conduct research that contributes to the circumscription, conservation and management of Western Australian flora. Melissa's research utilises a range of molecular genetic techniques to examine the evolutionary processes that maintain genetic diversity and shape patterns of genetic structure in native taxa. Her work contributes to understanding long term evolutionary influences of the persistence and phylogeographic structure of native taxa as well as the effects of current anthropogenic disturbances such as fragmentation and the requirements for successful long term restoration. |
Chris Ikin - Treasurer
Chris has many interests/activities in plant conservation. He is an active member of the Friends of Black Mountain and Friends of Jerrabomberra Wetlands, a Friend of the Australian National Botanic Gardens, a long-time bush walker and lover of Australia’s native flora, and an amateur enthusiast of ACT's native orchids. Now retired, Chris had a distinguished career in public accounting (principally auditing) and lecturing in accounting, auditing and financial management. He is a former Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia, and a former Treasurer of various incorporated and unincorporated community organisations. |
Dr Kate Brown - Committee member
Kate works as an Ecologist on the Swan River Coastal Plain with the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions Western Australia. Her work focuses on restoration of regionally significant bushland including a number of threatened ecological communities and rare flora. She is particularly interested in the management of invasive plants for restoration of threatened flora and plant communities. Her work currently involves developing management techniques for environmental weeds and understanding impacts of prescribed burning on the plant communities of Tuart Woodlands. She is also working on restoration of seasonal clay-based wetlands including monitoring and managing the impacts of threatening processes over time. |
Dr David Coates - Committee member
David Coates is a Senior Principal Research Scientist in plant conservation in the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions Western Australia. He has broad interests that cover conservation biology, conservation genetics, ecological restoration, recovery of rare and threatened species and managing threatening processes such as Phytophthora dieback and habitat fragmentation. He currently leads a project on threatened plant translocations in the National Environmental Science Program’s Threatened Species Recovery Hub and hold positions of adjunct Professor at the University of Western Australia and Murdoch University. |
Andrew Crawford - Committee memberAndrew has worked at Western Australia’s Threatened Flora Seed Centre (Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions) for the past 16 years collecting and conserving WA’s conservation significant plant species, and has been involved with the germination of many of the threatened species grown for use by the Department in plant translocations. He has a PhD on seed storage and longevity of Australian native plant species, and was a co-author of a chapter on seed and vegetative material collection in the 2009 edition of the ANPC’s Plant Germplasm Conservation in Australia publication. For the past 10 years he has taught a module on seed collection and ex situ seed storage as part of a flora management course run by the Department. |
Chantelle Doyle - Committee member
Chantelle's background includes environmental education and restoration with a focus on botany. She is currently a consultant botanist with AMBS Ecology and Heritage working on a range of projects including threatened flora surveys, impact assessments, vegetation management planning and offset, impact, and rehabilitation monitoring. Most recently she has been involved in searches and recommendations for management of Data Deficient Species listed under the NSW Saving Our Species program. She is also working on a propagation and planting trial for the newly described species, Hibbertia spanantha. An avid communicator, Chantelle is a co-presenter on a science themed radio show, which discusses the latest developments in Australian science and ecology. |
Dr Paul Gibson Roy - Committee member
Paul has been involved for some years with the restoration of wildflower grasslands and grassy woodlands, both threatened plant communities. Since 2004 he has headed the Grassy Groundcover Research Project (GGRP), a multiregional research project focusing on the restoration of complex herbaceous vegetation on agricultural lands by direct seeding. The GGRP was initiated as a joint partnership between Greening Australia (Victoria) and the University of Melbourne. Paul is also actively involved with issues of sustainability within the broader horticultural industry and was a founding member of the industry-based NGO Sustainable Gardening Australia (SGA). Paul is strongly committed to the ANPCs goals of facilitating the network of practitioners, agencies and researchers across Australia. |
Michelle Haby - Committee member
Michelle started an environmental consulting business on Kangaroo Island about five years ago and is accredited wtih the South Australian Native Vegetation Council to conduct vegetation surveys for clearance applications. She is passionate about conserving native vegetation and firmly believes that revegetation plays a big role in conservation. She would like to see a lot more nursery based trials into germination so local nurseries can help restore habitat in a cost effective manner with the full spectrum of species that once grew in their areas. She also thinks that the general community’s gardens can play a role in threatened and regionally significant plant species conservation. By making these species available to the public, they can gain an appreciation and connection with them, thereby increasing their profile and worth.
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Selga Harrington - Committee memberSelga is a past editor of the ANPC’s quarterly Australian Plant Conservation bulletin (2011-2014). She has an honours degree in plant ecology where she studied the fire response of the ephemeral Pink Flannel Flower and differences in the ecological strategy of the species resulting from its dimorphic fruit. She has more than 19 years’ experience in botanical surveys, ecological monitoring, offset assessments and conservation management plans, predominantly working as a consultant. Selga’s technical expertise was recognised internationally within her company when she was awarded Project of the Year for a complex three year scientific investigation of the relationship of vegetation communities and species to groundwater and surface water within an endangered swamp community. Her experience has included projects in QLD, NSW, ACT, VIC, SA and WA. She has also taken a hands on approach to conservation and has been active in bushcare and conservation management in NSW and ACT. |
Maria Matthes - Committee memberMaria has worked for 25 years in the field of plant conservation for State and Local Government, and more recently as an ecological consultant. She has been an active member of the ANPC for 17 years, and was convenor and co-author of the first ANPC translocation guidelines and co-author of the 2nd edition, and is a regular presenter at the ANPC translocation and restoration workshops. Her particular interests are the application of genetic research, ecological restoration, translocations, monitoring pollination, fire ecology, climate change, invertebrate-plant interactions, sustainable land management, and community involvement, including Aboriginal groups and farmers. |
Kylie Moritz - Committee member Kylie Moritz has 20 years' experience in the field of natural resource management in south-eastern Australia. She has worked in the field of threatened flora recovery for the past 11 years, in the role of Senior Project Officer, Threatened Flora at South Australian Murray-Darling Basin (SAMDB). Prior to this she managed the threatened flora recovery project on Kangaroo Island while working as the Islands' Bush Management Advisor for a period of 4 years. During this time she has worked on both nationally and state listed threatened species covering a wide array of projects spanning seed collection and storage, species propagation, translocations and propagation research, threat abatement, genetic research, flora surveys, searches and mapping and major restoration and revegetation works. Kylie has also lead the preparation of a number of national Recovery Plans and chairs the SAMDB Threatened Flora Recovery Team. Working for both the Department for Environment, Water and Natural Resources and Natural Resources SAMDB, she has developed good connections and relationships with people across the environmental sectors, public, private and NGO. She has experience, and enjoys, organising workshops and community events and is passionate about communicating science and natural resource management to the broader public. |
Cathy Offord - Committee memberCathy's research interests lie in ex situ conservation including seed storage and tissue culture, reproductive biology, especially seed biology, horticultural development of Australian Plants and translocation of threatened species. Her current projects include ex situ conservation of Australian rainforest species, restoration ecology of Persoonia species, conservation and cultivation of Wollemi Pine and technological improvement of seed banking for long-term conservation. |
Linda is the Director of the Australian National Herbarium in Canberra, on of CSIRO's six National Research Collections. At the moment her major research interests include assessing seed production areas to ensure they are producing high genetic quality seed for restoration. In conjunction with partners inclusing the ANPC, she is also building a project to assess where and how to restore Silver Banksia (Banksia marginata) for the Bring Back the Banksias Project. LInda is a regular presenter at ANPC workshops including the recent Provenance Workshops. Studying human biology at university, Linda by chance took a plant biology course as part of her undergrad program and the tutor inspired a love a plants. She went to to do a PhD in the conservation of Geleznowia verrucosa, a monotypic species in WA. After working for CALM (now BC&A) in WA Linda moved to CSIRO in 2000.
