Noosa Landcare natural resources manager Phil Moran. Image: Brian Rickards
Phil Moran is so passionate about the environment that he admits to hugging every tree he can.
In his youth he had ideas of pursuing a career in the legal profession, but it wouldn’t have been as satisfying for this man who instead grew to love the bush.
Phil is the natural resource manager for Noosa and District Landcare Group which is based in the Sunshine Coast hinterland town of Pomona. And his personal journey to that point has been a long and winding one.
While he now oversees this not-for-profit organisation that works with the community to deliver hands-on environmental solutions, he sees it as a life blessing.
“I am very fortunate to be able to a job that I love,” he said as we talked on the verandah of the Futures Centre nursery where Phil and his team work.
This is a man who worked in the tourist industry starting at the Tangalooma resort on Moreton Island and later becoming a trainee manager at Brisbane’s biggest hotel at the time. At 21 he became catering manager and stayed there for another nine years in a role he enjoyed and which eventually inspired him to open his own catering business.
“But always I had the bush in the back of my mind I had,” Phil said.
He had a friend who owned a piece of land on the outer limits of Brisbane and he went there when he could to learn about the bush. Later they took a trip to Malaysia, Sumatra and Thailand where Phil got a thrill from looking at the jungle.
That trip took place while he was running his business at Ashgrove where he catered to the Brisbane glitterati and had begun planting trees in at the back of the premises, starting his own small jungle which exists to this day.
But it was the end of another nine-year cycle when his sister became ill and he decided to sell and move up to Cooroy where he bought himself 5 acres.
His real passion for the bush and its fauna and flora was awoken as he established a small wholesale nursery. At the same time he joined the Landcare group as a volunteer and helped out in its riparian nursery.
It began to take over his life. At first he worked one day a week for Landcare, then two days until eventually he was given paid work.
Since then he has seen the twin nurseries of Landcare grow steadily; the riparian nursery now producing nearly 90,000 tubestock a year and the Futures Centre performing similarly.
Phil was picking up a lot of tree planting knowledge as well as learning about the bush. One of his mentors at Landcare was Dave Burrows who left to eventually work as a senior manager for Land for Wildlife.
When Phil was given a day a week killing off camphor laurel and privet on one of the council reserves at Yellowbelly hole he found he really enjoyed it – no mobile phone reception and he just got on with it, working in the wild.
He was also involved in some funded land projects such as Corridors of Green which linking riparian zones.
“I was paid as a labourer and I loved it,” said Phil.
One thing led to another. The group went through many changes and as more work became available Phil climbed up the ladder and was offered more work where eventually he was able to employ his past business acumen.
Burrows, who was the project officer for the Corridors of Green, moved on to a council position and it left a hole at Landcare which Phil was able to fill and get work for five days a week with them. Now Phil has climbed his personal tree to become the natural resources manager, responsible for 31 staff of which 24 are employed full-time. Of those 10 are the Green Army – a state government employment project.
“In fact, we are now the second biggest employer in Pomona,” said Phil.
He said another thrill he gets is to see kids he has trained move on and perform brilliantly at places such as the Sunshine Coast Regional Council. At a school talk about the environment two of his former ‘students’ who had made the big leap forward joined him.
“They were there in their council uniforms and stood out front with me, teaching that second generation of kids what they had been taught by the old bloke. I though it was a lovely circle and happy that I had infected them with that passion for the environment.
“That keeps me going as well as keeping me grounded.”
Phil says he certainly doesn’t do it for the money, saying it’s really caring about how we all live.
“I now live on 33 acres of land on the far west of the old Noosa council region. It was the first refuge to be declared in the shire. So my heart is there,” he said.
At first he lived in a tin shed on that property, but it was more than your ordinary tin shed. It was part of his continuing education.
“My place is rough country – quite steep, spotted gum country with basalt and phyllite. But I think of it as a university without the sandstone. You never stop learning – if I go for a walk I’ll see a plant I haven’t seen before,” he said.
“I have already identified 240 different species on my place so far.”
Phil’s attachment to the environment has led him to also be appointed as a board member for the UNESCO-recognised Noosa Biosphere. In 2007, the old Noosa Shire boundary was designated as a biosphere region – a first for Queensland.
A biosphere reserve is an international conservation listing awarded to an area with innovative approaches to conservation and sustainable development. Biosphere reserves promote a balanced relationship between humans and the biosphere.
Phil is also hands-on with the biosphere project, organising the Landcare team to help maintain and environmentally improve parts of the area with weed removal and tree plantings. He also does a blog for the biosphere.
Then Phil gets philosophical.
“Our biggest problem these days is the disconnect between day to day life and the environment,” he said.
“When I lived in the city, you’d get out of bed, have brekkie on the run, jump into air-conditioned car, join others in a traffic jam, get into a lift. You don’t even get to walk on grass. The only nature you see is a token one, on a computer screensaver.
“So it’s really hard to teach people about biodiversity — because they don’t get to experience it. But if I can give them little stories about how the way these things are all inter-related, hopefully the lights will come on.
“When I was a kid I’d be squatting down on the ground playing with ants and little lizards and things, but then you’d grow up and start going out to nightclubs and meeting girls. Then things like the environment might take a back seat.”
So Phil’s idea is to instill such a passion for the environment into kids, that they will never forget it and retain that connection.
“I have son who is almost 18. He grew up with me in my shed. Because I lived in it for 12 years out there with no power for four of those years, no TV or anything, we’d go out in the bush and we’d make cubbies, kill weeds and do stuff,” he said.
“My son can still walk around now and tell me that that’s a white-headed pigeon or that plant is looking sick, It’s amazing what ticks in kids’ minds. When his mates come up from Brisbane now, I hear him talking to them – he even told one not to whack a white ants nest. He’d say ‘no, leave them alone – that’s not the type that eats the house, it’s the one that cleans up the bush’.
“I never tried to force this environment stuff down his throat, It’s a symbiosis thing – kids tend to pick it up from you if you have that passion.”
He said Landcare likes to work with the schools.
“I go out to them to talk about weeds and I’ll help them with tree planting,” he said.
While Phil is encouraged by the kids, there are many things in the adult world of developers and governments that upset him – especially in his own region. The Cooroy-Curra bypass was a project he fought against as was the Traveston dam.
But successful or not, Phil has a belief that when the fight is over, it’s over. His way is ‘to work like hell’ in the initial stages to persuade authorities not to go ahead with a bad project and to try to get the best outcome for the environment.
“I’ll always work with people to get the best result. If I fail, I fail but I’ll give it a good shot. Once the law is passed I am not going to stand in front of a bulldozer – that’s not my area. I prefer to do the work beforehand.”
One of Phil’s other major environmental roles, they seem to cling to him like lawyer vines, is as vice-president of the National Aquatic Weeds Management Group. It means he gets around Australia identifying the weeds and helping with action plans to get rid of them. But in his region there are significant water weed problems – cabomba, water hyacinth and salvinia being just a few examples.
However, it’s the education side of environmental matters that really gets his juices flowing. He loves to give advice to people who might have moved into the Sunshine Coast area and are looking how to best look after their properties.
“The year before last I did more than 90 property visits. I go out to their newly-acquired and identify the weeds and the native plants, erosion issues etcetera. It’s great to see the thrill they get when I say ‘Wow, look at this wonderful plant. Or even that’s bad, you need to get rid of that’.
“They’re really keen – they’ve actually reached out and sought advice – that’s encouraging. We’re even getting to real estate agents to get the message out there.”
Phil is also pleased that the local tourism industry is coming on board as many players are doing much to reduce their ecological footprint.
“They now recognise that they have a goose here with a golden egg that is the environment. I tell them they wouldn’t have their business without that healthy environment,” added Phil.
His message in this Year of Biodiversity is ‘to get out there and have a look. Go for a walk. Learn something that’s outside the square. Get involved with the Biosphere, your local catchment group, the local Landcare group, even a P&C group with school environment activities’.
“Go to the World Environment Day event at the Sunshine Coast university, go to the Festival of Water at Lake McDonald. Just get out to have a look at your environment and get a real feel for it,” he added.
And finally, some timely advice from this man who loves the land: ‘If you want to be involved in bush regeneration, it’s not neat and it will take a while. Nature’s the best –SHE is the teacher and we need to learn from her before it’s too late.
Related articles:
Follow Eco