ABOUT US
Our Board
Our Board is made up of a passionate team who collectively guide the direction of the Foundation and liaise with project stakeholders.
Directors of the Board are appointed for terms of one to three years to ensure creative stimulus is maintained and the broadest range of community skills and experience engaged. One is an elected Noosa Shire Councillor, a requirement of the Trust.
Fiona Berkin
Chair
Fiona is an accomplished, outcome driven CEO with a significant portfolio that demonstrates the achievement of outstanding results. Her focus is on purpose-led leadership, which facilitates cultural transformation and oneness and unity with stakeholders, producing better outcomes faster.
After a successful corporate career as the CEO growing a facilities management company to 2000+ employees and spanning more than 20 years, Fiona had a pressing desire to serve humanity and our planet. A new chapter began when she was appointed as the CEO of Destiny Rescue Australia and Director of Strategy Destiny Rescue International, a non-profit INGO renowned for its success in the fight against child trafficking and sexual exploitation.
Her interest in the environment and how to balance its protection with societal needs, resulted in her being chosen as an Advisor to the NBRF Board. Fiona is excited about the opportunity to enrich collaboration with the many community groups that are all working, ultimately, towards a united cause. She will help facilitate the mapping of common purpose and vision, and utilise the NBRF strengths to multiply efforts in enhancing the Noosa Biosphere Reserve.
Linda Venables
Deputy Chair
Linda is an international executive with 35 years’ experience building and leading teams across Retail, FMCG, Industrial and 3rd Party Logistics sectors, with core competencies spanning business transformation, technology integration and automation deployment, Logistics and end-to-end Supply Chain.
She is passionate about partnering with integrity, internally and with external customers and service/vendor partners – and defining and delivering ‘win-win’ solutions that create new value.
Able to inspire a healthy culture with high levels of engagement, Linda is known and recognised as a ‘values-based’ leader who is passionate about safety, high performing teams and the proactive management of risk.
With strong business development and B2B relationship development experience, Linda is skilled in establishing and delivering large transformational programs, including mergers, acquisition and divestment, adept at leading negotiations and change management.
Cr Tom Wegener
Board Director & Noosa Council Representative
Cr Wegener brings his expertise as a sustainable surfboard manufacturer, academic and environmental lawyer to the NBRF Board as Noosa Council’s representative. For the past 20 years, Tom has run his internationally successful and multiple award-winning surfboard business in Noosa. His bespoke, highly sought-after boards have led the surfboard industry to greener manufacturing processes.
Tom holds a PhD in the sustainability of small manufacturers in Australia of which his findings were published in his book, Surfboard Artisans For The Love. Tom brought his real-world experience in sustainable manufacturing to academia and his body of work continues to grow through Australia and with projects in Papua New Guinea, Japan, Korea and Europe.
Prior to coming to Noosa, Tom graduated from the University of California San Diego with a BA in Philosophy and a Jurist Doctorate from the University of San Diego School of Law. Tom focused on environmental law and worked for Greenpeace as well as starting the Environmental Law Society. His concentration was on good regulation in sustaining and improving the environment.
Prof Ian Lowe
Board Director
Ian Lowe is an emeritus professor in the School of Environment and Science at Griffith University. His degrees include a doctorate in physics from University of York, a Doctor of Science from University of NSW and two honorary doctorates. His publications include 15 books, over 50 book chapters and more than 50 journal articles. A former president of Australian Science Communicators, he has also written regular columns for a range of periodicals including New Scientist and The Weekend Australian.
Ian has served on a wide range of advisory bodies for all levels of government, including the national energy research council, the council advising the nuclear regulator, the expert advisory committee to the South Australian Royal Commission on the nuclear industry and the environmental health council. He chaired the advisory council which produced the first independent national report on the state of the environment in 1996, as well as chairing Queensland Conservation Council for three years and Brisbane City Council’s environment advisory committee for five years. He was recently re-appointed to the board of Health and Wellbeing Queensland.
Ian has received many awards for his work including the Queensland Millennium Award for Excellence in Science, the Prime Minister’s Environmental Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement and the Konrad Lorenz Gold Medal for contributions to sustainable futures. He was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2001 and elected a Fellow of the Academy of Technology and Engineering in 2005. He moved to the Sunshine Coast twenty years ago and is Patron of the Sunshine Coast Environment Council.
Jennifer Black
Board Director
Jennifer is a strategist and an innovative change maker. With over 25 years’ driving reforms, she specialises in innovation, collaboration, and environment. Jennifer works with partners from across sectors to leverage investment and capital for common goals, having achieved an extensive portfolio of environmental economics across life sciences, nature conservation, and energy reduction. As well as building economies for entrepreneurs’, start-ups, small businesses and in the tourism sector.
Jennifer holds has an honours degree in natural systems and wildlife management where she has led many reforms to secure land, sea and sky protection or sustainable use in Queensland. She works closely with Aboriginal and Torres’s Strait Islander people and values their perspectives to enrich our common future. She also works closely with businesses and change makers from all sectors to shift towards a new reality.
Jennifer lives in Noosa, with her husband, teenage children, and dogs, as well as their local Glossy Black-Cockatoos who frequent her yard.
Peter Hunnam
Board Director
Peter is a local ecologist and environmental scientist, living in Tewantin with partner Valerie, diving, sailing, kayaking, and singing when time allows and both active members of numerous local groups. Peter has been a Member of the NBRF for the past ten years and is a Board Director for the second time. He is particularly interested in people living close to nature, building local ecological knowledge, using and developing local natural resources in ecologically sensitive and sustainable ways.
Peter brings to the Board more than 40 years’ professional experience in the development and management of conservation and sustainable development programs comparable to Biosphere Reserves. These span a wide range of socio-economic and ecological settings, and include integrated conservation & development projects, Marine Parks, LMMAs, biodiverse landscapes and other multi-use schemes, as well as conventional protected areas. He has specialised in the design and monitoring, evaluation and adaptive management of these complex programs and in using participatory research and planning tools to build local capacity.
Peter has written umpteen management reviews and evaluations, policies and plans, and also two books on life in water, The Living Aquarium and the Marine Life of Aqaba – he would like to write more.
Liz Stewart
Board Director
Liz is known for her ability to drive successful outcomes and unite the team on the journey. Her CXO and management consulting background provide her with the experience and capability for managing the challenges and opportunities faced on transformation change programs across geographies and cultures. After a highly successful corporate career, Liz decided to invest her energies in community based organisations that focus on the land, waterways, wildlife and the communities who live within the environment to ensure we protect our greatest assets.
Liz was the Treasurer at Gympie & District Landcare Group from 2021 to 2024 where she grew the revenue and drove significant change for the organisation supporting its strategic and business resilience goals.
She has excellent communication, insight, and stakeholder management capabilities, with a key focus of developing relationships and networks. Liz has been highly successful in embedding a culture of innovation and is passionate about developing and building capability.
Liz also mentors organisations and individuals to enable them to reach their potential. Her organisational and leadership capabilities developed early having grown up in a military family who enjoyed multiple domestic and overseas postings.
Hayley Holloway
Board Director
Hayley comes to the NBRF with over 25 years experience in political strategy, public policy development and government operational management. A born-and-bred Canberran, Hayley gained a science degree in resource and environmental management through the ANU and went on to spend over 15 years working in conservation and environment in various roles with Environment ACT and the Taronga Conservation Society Australia.
Hayley moved her family to the Sunshine Coast in 2015 and continued providing consultancy services to the Taronga Conservation Society Australia before taking up positions in the electorate offices of the State Member for Noosa and Federal Member for Fairfax.
Hayley works closely with individuals, businesses and community groups helping to navigate government systems and processes, and as an involved and proud local community member, is committed to the sustainable development of our region. Hayley lives in Eumundi with her rural fire fighter husband and two teenage sons, and is an Australian representative figure skater.
Alan Hegerty
Board Advisor
Alan has had a 25-year career as an experienced executive across Australia, the UK and North America, and is responsible for scaling several successful ventures, including most recently a financial services firm managing in excess of $3.5 billion.
Alan is on a quest for deeper fulfilment and to help purpose lead businesses and not-for-profits to amplify their growth and impact on the world. He has a passion for sustainability and environmental pursuits and is excited to be involved with the NBRF as a Board Adviser to help scale the foundation’s impact and play a leading role in preserving the region he calls home with his wife and two children.
Catherine Yule
Board Advisor
Cathy is an aquatic ecologist who dedicated over three decades to working in South East Asia before returning to Australia in 2018 to join the University of the Sunshine Coast as Professor of Ecology.
She carried out her pioneering doctoral research on tropical stream ecology on Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea. Subsequently she spent five years as an environmental consultant in Indonesian Borneo, before devoting 18 years to research and teaching tropical environmental biology at Monash University’s Malaysian campus.
Currently, her collaborative, multidisciplinary research focuses on the ecology of regional peat swamps – extreme and endangered environments of global significance due to their immense carbon sequestration and distinctive biodiversity. With a profound, global perspective on terrestrial and aquatic ecology, conservation, sustainability and the impacts of climate change, Cathy approaches these issues with dedication and passion.
Jarrah Small
Youth Representative
On a mission to protect wildlife and the environment, 15-year-old Jarrah Small is an award winning Conservationist, Environmental Educator and Wildlife Rescuer. Growing up immersed in nature, surfing, and exploring remote national parks, Jarrah has been keeping beaches and coastal regions free from rubbish and plastic pollution since the age of six. She has been collecting data, inspiring others and working in collaboration with strategic partners to continue her clean up efforts with over 26,000 pieces of pollution recorded and removed from the environment.
Jarrah blends her hands-on grassroots conservation work with social media platforms, public speaking, and community engagement to be a proud advocate for positive environmental change. Through captivating public speaking, workshops and being a role model in her community, Jarrah inspires the next generation to adopt more environmentally sensitive practices.
As a regular attendee at national and local conferences and events, Jarrah continues to extend and develop her knowledge of conservation and environmental education. She brings an abundance of energy, enthusiasm and youthful optimism to the Noosa Biosphere Reserve Foundation.
Our team
Garry Hamilton
Program Manager
Garry joined the NBRF in October after leaving his position as a development manager for utility scale renewable energy projects.
Passionate about the environment and sustainability, Garry has amassed experience in environmental impacts and potential resolution opportunities through three decades of working in the sector across three continents.
With a first degree in Forestry and a Masters in Environmental Management obtained at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, Garry has been passionate about the conservation of the natural environment his entire life
Career highlights include initiating, growing and managing an environmental consulting company in Vancouver, Canada; progressing a number of wind energy projects from initiation to operation (totalling over 4 gigawatts of output); management of stakeholder groups focused on policy development and evolution, volunteering for many environmental not for profit organisations and building meaningful relationships with First Nations communities.
Garry is passionate about protecting and conserving the Noosa Shire for the current and future generations and is grateful to be part of such a proactive and dedicated team. He is excited about the opportunities the NBRF have in playing an integral part towards achieving this goal.
Chabuca Barnes
Secretariat
Chabuca is a dynamic professional with experience as a consultant, partnership manager and project manager across a range of Sustainability and International Development issues. With a strong aptitude for problem-solving and a talent for fostering collaboration, Chabuca has navigated diverse roles, from managing multinational partnerships and delivering advisory services at CSR Europe in Brussels, to coordinating multi-country projects and leveraging strategic alliances at VSO in London. Coupled with a post-graduate Master’s degree in Environmental Technology from Imperial College, this has cultivated a profound understanding of global sustainability issues and a desire to drive sustainable solutions to challenges we face on our own doorstep.
Chabuca moved to the Sunshine Coast a few years ago with her family and is keen to use her skills to support NBRF and actively engage in protecting and building resilience of our unique environment and community here on the Coast.