Governor General, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Thank you to everyone for attending this afternoon and sharing your precious time with us and a special thank you to Sir Peter for hosting this afternoon.

Like all good journeys the Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife has a plan, a route map, and I’d like to spend a few moments updating you on some of our plans and projects for this year

The Foundations mission is to create parks – adding to Australia’s portfolio of National Parks managed by the States and Territories - and to save species

In Creating Parks, we are very excited to be part of the creation of the Flinders Ranges World Heritage National Park in South Australia, and specifically the purchase of part of Nilpena station to add to Ediacara Conservation Park. Not only is this a beautiful landscape, but the park contains an extraordinary and unique collection of Ediacara fossils of the earliest complex multi-cellular organisms from 650 million years ago.

And in NSW after helping with the acquisition of 229 hectares for the Woomargama National Park, we are also helping with the acquisition of Gospers Mountain, the only privately held inholding within the Wollemi Wilderness area.

And we are very enthusiastic about the creation of the Bondi to Manly Walk, as the Sydney Harbour Scenic Walk has become more recently known, working with Lauchlan Harris and John Fawlkner to make that a reality.

In the area of Threatened Species, we are again very active. We are funding a project led by Dr. Ricky Spencer and the University of Western Sydney to ensure the Murray River Turtles not only survive but thrive. The communities and schools of the Murray Darling Basin will be involved in this exciting project, releasing over 1M turtles a year into the river system and creating safe breeding grounds for turtles.

And in partnership with the NSW Governments Saving Our Species programme we are funding the management of remnant native habitats and the creation of connectivity corridors, enabling threatened species to move about the landscape. $600,000 is being spent over 3 years in landscapes that stretch from the Queensland to the Victorian Borders.

In South Australia The Bandicoot Super-highway is also a ‘connect to protect’ corridor that we are helping fund, aimed at linking 3 genetically isolated populations of bandicoots in the Mount Lofty Ranges.

We are very excited about these projects that can really make a difference as we move into our 50th year. However, we cannot continue the journey without the ongoing support of our donors and partners. We are therefore launching a dedicated FNPW Giving programme focused on our supporters and donors.

As part of this, we are establishing a Stewardship Group that is a group of philanthropic leaders who are passionate about safeguarding Australia's wilderness and wildlife for future generations and spreading the message of conservation of our parks and species. We truly believe that with all your support, we can act now to create parks and save species to secure a better future for all.

Thank you.

For more information, go to https://www.fnpw.org.au/