Tony James (Nursery Manager)I came to Gympie Landcare about 9 years ago and in that time I have seen the organisation grow and improve. As the Nursery Manager I am responsible for all things plant related including plant propagation and sales, advising clients about the characteristics of native plants, answering their questions and making recommendations about plants suited to their needs. I also manage and train a great team of volunteer staff and can honestly say that I love my job particularly talking to our customers who become like friends and family. My interests include the environment and helping people to embrace native plants and I have a passion for gardening which I believe is the greatest therapy.
Lavina Shaw (General Manager)I have lived in the Gympie region for 9 years and have worked in various professional industries including accounting, the solar industry, plumbing, and irrigation. I have always loved the outdoors and would regularly spend my weekends as a kid camping in the great outdoors where my father would teach me about bush survival. Being on the land is second nature to me and I hope to grow my own produce patch so that my Husband and I can become self-sufficient. I am also an extremely devoted animal lover and an active staff member of an animal rescue group.
I am truly excited to be apart of the Gympie Landcare team and am looking forward to the challenges that lay ahead. My role is to oversee the general administrative processes of the organisation and to create further awareness about landcare in the Gympie community through events and marketing.
I have been working with Gympie Landcare since 2015 and studied Horticulture in 2000. Before Landcare I worked at a number of commercial farms producing everything from Australian native plants, cut flowers, and small crops. I’ve also carried out public works including vegetation management in the Wet Tropics World Heritage areas and Cape York. I like the variety of what we do as I get to spend time in different environments in our region meeting many landowners who are passionate about what they do. After work I enjoy my garden. I grow a mix of local native species and exotics. I love to get out in the bush and enjoy the trails, streams and hidden places. For me it is important that we look after the land and leave a good legacy for future generations to use and enjoy, and I think that what we do at Landcare certainly makes a difference.
I was looking for a complete change from my career in insurance when I moved to Gympie a few years ago. I came to Landcare as a volunteer and initially worked in the office. When a vacancy came up in Bio-Control I was immediately attracted because it was so different to anything I had ever done before and I had the opportunity to be outside doing physical work. It was a steep learning curve but two and a half years later I know I made the right choice. I work with a great team where I continually learn. My job involves the breeding of the Tingid bug, the Jewel beetle and the Madeira beetle to help deal with cats claw creeper and the Madeira vine. My ultimate aim is the eradication of cats claw, and while this may not be possible, I am always searching for new ideas and looking for new approaches. I am currently experimenting with the leaf tying moth but it is only early days.
25 years ago I left the big smoke in search of a lifestyle more in touch with nature. I stopped on the Cooloola Coast, joined the local bush regeneration group and settled down to do an Assoc. Degree in Applied Science. I have always had an interest in the ecological workings of natural environments and as my studies and field experience progressed I became passionate in understanding the factors that provide for more sustainable resource use. I have worked in the conservation industry in many roles from educator and project coordinator to field officer. I have a history of roles in flora and fauna management in natural and culturally significant environments, and therefore bring a broad knowledge base to the Landcare team. I am now undertaking a new area of interest and training within the Bio-Control team at Landcare and look forward to contributing my land management experience to the local community in our war on invasive species. My mantra for life in the modern world is “let’s look after our own backyard.
Growing up in an urban environment in Edgecliff, Sydney, I lived near a small creek with parklands and natural areas surrounded by urban sprawl. This small park nurtured a love for plants and a thirst for knowledge about the natural world.
As a Survey Technician I worked on many sites from underground road tunnels, sewerage outfall tunnels, high rise construction, bridges and green field subdivisions. This work made me realise that our urban sprawl is damaging our environment, sometimes unnecessarily. After years of watching the destruction of large habitat trees and waterways my wife and I decided to make the big step to leave the city and live a more sustainable existence in the country. We finally ended up settling on a fertile mountain side block and threw ourselves into building a house and cleaning up an enormous weed infestation in our gully. I quickly realised that I needed to educate myself on best practice and headed off to TAFE to learn Horticulture and Diploma, Conservation and Land Management.
10 years on we now have a comfortable country house, 2 children, 2 dogs, 3 horses, chooks, guinea pigs, cattle and the numbers keep growing. Our food production areas are now far larger than I ever expected to achieve.
My passion for conservation, bush regeneration and nursery work has led me to the Landcare movement, where I have an awesome opportunity to share what I have learned with the community and continue my education in the NRM sector. I have recently completed stage 1 planting of 3000 tube stock at home grown in my own nursery from locally collected seed and plan to plant a further 10,000 by 2025. I hope I can leave my children a rainforest that their children will play in as I did as a child.
I have always loved nature and working for Landcare gives me the opportunity to work in an environment where I can see butterflies, birds and on a rainy day smell the beautiful scent of honey coming from the hives.
I started at Landcare as a volunteer and am now working part time as an assistant, supporting all the teams with their administration. I enjoy the variety and in particular the developing of marketing material which gives me the opportunity to be more creative. The volunteer ethic is really strong at Landcare and when I have time I still enjoy helping the nursery team.
My husband Danny and I moved from Switzerland to Kununurra (Kimberley) in 1988 where we were involved in a station south of El Questro. The aim was to bring the badly overgrazed and understocked area back to life with the principles of Allan Savory. Our business partner and his wife moved out to the station and have fantastic results – check out their website here.
We established a business in town where we brought up our four children. I worked in Kununurra as a bookkeeper for 20 years. Many great adventures (plane crash, helicopter crash, crocodile attack) later, I decided that it was time to move on. My husband suggested I should spend a couple of wet seasons to find the perfect place I wanted to live and I took off in my little car all by myself, driving down the west coast, across the Nullarbor, up the east coast and back to Kununurra. When I told him that I found the perfect spot, he believed me and we packed up and moved to Goomboorian where we have a 30 acre farm. We continously plant new trees, have a vegetable garden and a growing orchard and some chooks and absolutely love the life! As a life member of Landcare I saw the position of Finance Officer advertised in the newsletter, applied for it and have started to work for Landcare at the beginning of November. I hope it will be a long and mutually satisfying arrangement!
I moved to the Gympie region in 2012 and feel so lucky to live in a place where I am surrounded by such beautiful natural environments. My family and I have a small hobby farm located just out of town with chickens, ducks, sheep, a pig and even a miniature horse! My fiancé and I are avid gardeners and have made a beautiful vegetable garden at home, which our children just love going and picking their fresh food from. I have always had a passion for conservation and the environment and strongly believe that the Earth will treat us in the way that we treat it.
I joined the team at Gympie Landcare in June 2019 and am extremely excited about my role as Events & Education Coordinator, as I am constantly trying to find interesting new workshops and presenters to showcase to our local community. I have also spent significant time designing a Junior Landcare program for children in the Gympie region and I am looking forward to playing an active role in educating our future generations of Land carers.
