Wildly South West
A podcast by South West NRM featuring engaging discussions with leading environmental experts, landholders, researchers and community voices. Each episode dives into the big issues facing our region in the south western corner of WA - a global biodiversity hotspot. From enhancing biodiversity and preventing extinction of threatened species to sustainable approaches to agriculture, climate resilience and community-led conservation — practical insights, local stories and solutions grounded in science.
Original Music by Beth Chia Music.
Wildly South West
What is NRM? And why should you care?
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From restoring threatened species and supporting sustainable agriculture to tackling climate change and protecting some of the world's richest biodiversity.
Natural Resource Management (NRM) plays a bigger role in our lives than most people realise.
In this latest episode, host Kristy Hitchens sits down with South West NRM CEO Dr Manda Page to unpack the history of NRMs, how they work today, and why they're vital to the future of our landscapes and communities.
Listen now and discover the people and partnerships helping care for Country in Western Australia's South West.
Thank you for listening to South West NRM's podcast: Wildly South West.
Original music is provided by Beth Chia Music.
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Welcome to Wildly Southwest, a podcast by Southwest NRM and the show where we dive deep into the landscapes, ecosystems and people shaping the environmental future of our region in this corner of Western Australia. But first, we recognise Nungar people as the traditional custodians and the first natural resource managers of this country on which we live and work. We pay our respects and acknowledge elders of this land, past and present. We are committed to working with traditional custodians to protect and care for country for the benefit of future generations. I'm your host, Christy Hitchens, and today we're joined by someone who has dedicated a career of 30 years to understanding, protecting and restoring our natural environment, Dr. Manda Page. Manda, it's great to have you here. Thank you very much for having me. It's great to be here. Manda is the CEO of Southwest NRM. She is a conservation scientist by trade, and her work across Western Australia and Queensland has shaped policy, improved the trajectory of native species on the brink of extinction, and strengthened cross-sector partnerships. She's a German shepherd owner, keen gardener, and also a Churchill Fellow, a prestigious recognition awarded to Australians who demonstrate exceptional leadership and a commitment to advancing knowledge for the public good. Let's just say she's one of those people that's what you might call a good egg. Today, Manda's going to help those of us who are not entirely familiar with that term NRM understand more about what natural resource management is, its history and its role in the environmental space. But first of all, Manda, for someone who's worked across the environment, so closely connected to animals, plants, and living things throughout your career, I'd really love to hear more about your environmental bucket list. What have you got right at the top of experiences that you would really like to do, or perhaps you've already done them?
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Christy. I've got to say I'm I'm extremely lucky that I've been able to tick off a number of the items on my bucket list. I've got to work with threatened species across Australia and internationally, and I've got to say one of the most amazing experiences I ever did was going to see the gorillas in Rwanda. That was just absolutely unbelievable. But the real thing that I want to do is to save threatened species here in Australia. I want to stop those things that are on the edge of extinction from falling off that cliff. The problem is it takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of collaboration and a lot of people contributing to it. And I've learned that over the years, that it's it's complicated. But I'm very proud to say that I have had a hand in helping so many species so far, a lot of it through just coordinating collaborations and getting people to work together. Things like the northern hairy-nosed wombat and Gilbert's Potteroos, which is Australia's most rarest mammals, possibly some of the rarest mammals in the world, right through to, of course, which must be Australia's cutest animal, the numbat. So I've had a really good trot. There's still a lot to do, and yeah, I'm looking forward to doing it here in the southwest.
SPEAKER_00Listening to that makes it kind of easy to understand what's drawn you in, but I think that level of dedication and purpose is something that everybody wishes they had in their working life. Can you tell us a little bit more about the gorillas in Rwanda?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so um that was part of my Churchill Fellow. So in um 2021, I was lucky enough to get a Churchill Fellow, which is awarded to Australians who want to go overseas and learn something that you can bring back to Australia to improve Australia's society. And I was lucky enough to go overseas to look at threatened species partnerships. So I went to South Africa, Rwanda, America, and Canada, and I looked at a range of case studies where amazing partnerships and collaborations have helped threatened species not go extinct. So I was very lucky. I got to do the gorillas in Rwanda with the Diane Fossey group. I did some stuff with grizzly bears and bison and even some cute little frogs and ferret type animals. So yeah, it was an amazing experience. But it taught me a lot about how collaboration is really important, but it's really difficult. And it's something I think we can do a lot better here in Australia.
SPEAKER_00I think that segues beautifully that learning that you developed about partnerships into the work that you do now as the CEO of Southwest NRM. Collaboration and partnerships is obviously a very big part of that work and a big part of NRM, which is what we're talking about today. Sure is. So if we start back to the beginning with the term NRM, it's a term if you work within the environment sector or within the NRM sector, you hear a lot. Listeners may not have actually even heard the term NRM very much. And so when they hear our organisation's name, Southwest NRM, their first question is often, what is NRM? So perhaps you could explain a little bit about what natural resource management actually is.
SPEAKER_01Sure. I get the question a lot, especially because it is in our title. When people ask me, where am I working now? And I say Southwest NRM, and it's like, what is this NRM thing? So it it literally stands for natural resource management, which is about the way we look after and use the natural things. And when I talk about natural things, I'm talking about parts of nature. So our soils, our water, our plants, our animals, um combined, that's our our biodiversity, it's what's in our marine environments, what in it is in our freshwater environments, the land, and also cultural landscapes. So it's everything that we might utilize, but utilising it in a way that ensures it's being used sustainably and that it exists for future generations. The thing that draws me to NRM is that it's a blend of science, community action, sustainability, production, and policy. It's complicated, but it's also deeply collaborative. It means that I get to work with traditional owners, I get to work with farmers, industry, passionate community groups, government, who are all working to ensure that we manage all our natural resources in a sustainable way and make sure that we've got those things there for the future.
SPEAKER_00Amazing. Such a broad range of people that we work with in this sector, all for a common cause, which is part of why it's so amazing. But this kind of system of NRM in Australia didn't happen overnight. Can you walk us through how it all kind of came about?
SPEAKER_01Sure, I can give you what I've managed to piece together since I started. But basically it takes its roots back in the 80s and 90s here in Australia. And that was a time when I think Australia was really starting to grapple with some of its major environmental challenges, or we're becoming more aware of them. Things like salinity and soil erosion, um, declining water quality, and even the beginnings of climate change, probably. Programs like land care were launched in that time, and they were pivotal because what we saw is communities starting to be empowered to take action. So taking action locally, but that sort of provided an impetus to look at it at scale. Then, I guess the late 90s or the early 2000s, the Australian government uh formalised NRMs, but one of the most interesting associations that I have with that is that it was in part because the government sold Telstra. So the Howard government privatised Telstra back in the late 90s, and one of the things that did is they actually enshrined it in legislation that some of the proceeds from selling Telstra would have to go back into the natural environment, so looking after the community and the environment. So proceeds went into a program called the National Heritage Trust. And that trust was a giant fund of money that was then part of a framework that allocated funds back to the regions and back to the communities that were doing land care type activities. And this was where the NRMs were born. Basically, there's 56 NRMs across Australia, and we each have our own patch or a region. It's at a scale where you can have a regional scale impact because we all know that the environmental issues don't follow boundaries or, you know, um shire boundaries or property lines. So we look more at sort of catchment scale or ecosystem scale. And each NRM is its own organisation and it applies the funding that it gets in part from the Australian government, but also from a number of other sources to dealing with some of the local issues that we see in our own patch.
SPEAKER_00I think I've also read that the NRM system or framework is unique to Australia. Is that something that you've heard?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I have. I think there are some similarities in other countries, but I've never seen anything exactly like this. I think Australia is very unique. Australia is um is big and complex, and having a system that goes right across the country that sort of works is quite amazing, and it's really embedded in that community action, and I think that's really quite unique for Australia too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Sounds like the Aussie way. So I mean it does actually have quite a long history, NRM, even though potentially quite a few of our listeners haven't heard of it before. How has it changed over that period of time, would you say?
SPEAKER_01I think it's changed a lot. I've only worked in, you know, in this organization, NRM, for a couple of years, but having worked in the environment for, as you said, over 30 years means that I've I've been associated with it a long time and it has definitely evolved. Southwest NRM itself is coming up to its 25th year anniversary, which is definitely something to celebrate. But it has had to evolve. And it's evolved because the world's become more complex. As you know, there's issues like climate change that have really come to the forefront now, and that's something that all environmentalists and everybody that works with the natural environment and beyond is having to grapple with because it's touching all of our lives. Biodiversity loss is increasing, pressures from humanity development is increasing as we, you know, as our populations grow. And so the issues have not gone away. Some have been dealt with, some have changed, but um, you know, the issue and the need for NRM has definitely not gone away. The other thing I've seen is a real change in some of the partnerships that are essential. And for for me, one of the most interesting that's really evolving rapidly now, as it should, is working with our traditional custodians. Um and really not only partnering to deliver NRM, but also to really understand what they bring to the table. They have such a a long history of managing the natural environment here in Australia, and there is so much we can learn from that. And so I think it's it's really lovely that it's in the light now and that we are really um starting to work together and and see some really great outcomes from that.
SPEAKER_00Makes for an exciting and interesting future. I think there's often a lot of gloom and doom when we talk about the future of the environment, but when we think about these new collaborations and what might be possible by this greater connection between traditional ecological knowledge and white science, I guess, and how we bring those together and how we create better outcomes for everyone, I guess, is something that is shifting and is exciting within the sector.
SPEAKER_01It is very exciting, and then on top of that, you've got new technologies. Um, and that's just blowing us all away as to what the possibilities are for that in our sector.
SPEAKER_00For sure. So you've raised some quite good national issues, especially talking about the NRM framework across the country. But if we bring it home a little bit more to our own patch, here at Southwest NRM, what are we as an organization focusing on?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean we're hugely lucky to work in the Southwest, in my personal opinion. It's one of the most diverse regions on the planet and one of the most beautiful. However, with that comes a whole heap of issues. It is also one of the predicted most climate-impacted places. And we're known as a biodiversity hotspot because we have such a diversity of species and a lot of endemisms, so that's species that only occur here, but also because there are so many species in this part of the world that are in trouble. So our work is really grappling with some of those things. Um, one area that we like to focus on, partly because of my personal history and um, but also because it's extremely important, is threatened species recovery. But we also work with sustainable agriculture, we're doing more with coastal resilience and then dealing with some of the threats that are impacting our systems, like introduced plants and animals, and then of course, as I mentioned before, how do we support those traditional custodian land management? We're also heavily involved in landscape scale restoration. So we can do individual species programs and individual threat programs, but we've got to stitch it all together to make sure that we have an impact at scale.
SPEAKER_00Amazing. Very busy times at Southwest NRM, and I'm sure that's the case for all NRMs around the country. For someone who is listening to this conversation, perhaps they're in the city, they haven't had a great deal of connection with NRMs or perhaps even the environmental sector. Why should they care about NRMs?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think it's becoming more and more apparent that we can't separate ourselves from the natural environment. It actually underpins almost everything about humanity. It provides our food, it provides our clean air, our clean water, it provides our cultural identity, um, economic resilience, and as well as our psychological well-being. We get so much, I mean I personally get so much from just being out in nature. Um it it gives me a, I don't know, a sense of peace or something that just triggers me to feel better about the day. So I think we just can't separate ourselves. And we all need to be able to do what we can to contribute to it. And I think NRM organizations are really one of the quiet achievers that are doing that. We're out there every day working with landholders and scientists and communities to coordinate projects that really supports the environment so it's sustainable for the future.
SPEAKER_00Amazing. I think pretty much everybody listening could relate to that comment that you made about how being out in nature just makes you feel better. And there's certainly plenty of research to confirm that as an actual occurrence. But if we think about how we feel when we go for a bushwalk or canoeing down the river, even a walk in your local park or on the beach, all those moments definitely bring something um good to our day and help settle our minds, I think. I agree. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I must say one of the most wonderful things of being down here in the southwest is how frequently I uh hear or see a black cockatoo fly over, and it just brings a smile in my face every time.
SPEAKER_00Amazing. Yeah, they're a beautiful creature, and that's so true and and interesting to think about because I'm someone who's spent most of my life living in the Southwest, those sorts of iconic sounds and features of our local environment, they almost become ubiquitous and you don't notice them. And it's something that has become really important to being part of this organization now for me is that I pay so much more attention to those things and what they bring to my life and how special they are. So um absolutely hear what you're saying. So looking ahead for the NRM sector, what do you see as the biggest opportunities standing out for things that we can be working on in the future?
SPEAKER_01I think three things really stand out for me in terms of the future. Firstly, it's um relates to climate adaptation. You know, helping landscapes and communities adjust to this rapidly changing climate. As we said, it's touching everybody and all parts of our lives now. And so, you know, that's really that's really a challenge I want to grab and try and work with. The second, I guess, is an opportunity, and this is nature markets. I'm not sure how much people know about this, but there's a lot of work happening in the background around our legislation and how we invest in nature, and that's going to open up some doors, I hope, for a much increased amount of investment in nature and increasing how we value nature. And I think that's a very exciting future where we can do more because we both value it and we invest in it more. And then, of course, the third thing, which I've already mentioned, is that deepening those partnerships with our traditional owners and traditional custodians, ensuring that cultural knowledge and leadership really guides how we care for country and how we move forward and how we can do it together in this really unique Australian society. So, you know, for me, NRM provides a future where we are collaborative, innovative, grounded in science and culture, and have local action that has landscape-scale positive outcomes for the environment.
SPEAKER_00It's definitely encouraging when you look up and scan the horizon and think about what the future might look like for NRM and for all of us in terms of caring for our environment and delivering better outcomes and ensuring a sustainable future. Manda, this has been an incredibly insightful conversation. Thank you for helping us to understand where NRMs came from, how they work, and most importantly why they matter. Thanks, Christy. And thanks to our listeners for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe and share it with someone who cares about Australia's landscapes. Until next time, take care of country and of each other.