Great Southern coast blessed with experience from career conservationist

After working in the incredibly biodiverse archipelago of Hawaii for more than a decade, Dr Mike Wysong has joined the team at South Coast Natural Resource Management in Albany. Dr Wysong has spent the past 20 years working as a conservationist in the US and Australia, now bringing his wealth of environmental experience to the Great Southern. As part of the biodiversity team, his focus will be on the region’s Regional Land Partnerships investments in threatened species and threatened ecological communities, as well as Project Dieback and the Carnaby’s Cockatoo Environment Restoration Fund project. Speaking to Inspire atop Mt Adelaide overlooking King George Sound, the career conservationist said his new role had many parallels to his time working in Hawaii. “Hawaii has amazing species diversity, especially in the plants. Ninety per cent of plant species are endemic, found only there,” Dr Wysong, pictured, said. “There’s an incredible rarity to that place and it’s similar here, where 60 per cent plants are endemic to the south coast. “It’s a biodiversity hotspot. There are 5400 plant species in an incredibly special and unique region. “That biodiversity and natural speciation I feel really matches the social value we place on the region ... Just look across the bay today and you can understand that.” Growing up in the rural northern US, surrounded by farms and forests, Dr Wysong appreciated nature from a young age. “For myself, a desire to work in conversation stems from personal values and appreciation and love for nature,” he said “Do good for the environment and people.” After 14 years in a Hawaiian paradise, Dr Wysong decided he was lacking in aspects of his industry, eventually moving to WA in 2012. “I was looking for further education PhD opportunities and just happened to go to a conference in Mexico where I met a person who became my supervisor,” he said. “I was invited to join the program at UWA, I applied for scholarship and got it, and it brought me to Perth.” Dr Wysong, his wife and two young children have just arrived in the Great Southern, making Denmark their new home after four years in Broome. As the Indigenous protected area co-ordinator for Nyamba Buru Yawuru, Dr Wysong worked with traditional owners on conservation projects in Yawuru land in the Kimberley. The organisation works to promote conservation and regeneration on country using traditional and modern knowledge and methods. Dr Wysong said he was proud of the culturally and scientifically sound work he supported during his time in Broome, emphasising collaboration with first landowners was important. As South Coast NRM’s new healthy environments program manager, Dr Wysong will work across four projects that target threatened flora and fauna species. Partnering with landowners and the State Government, he will strive to ensure species such as the Carnaby’s black cockatoo, chuditch, western ground parrot, mallee fowl, Gilbert’s potoroo and ringtail possum are protected from threats such as feral cats, foxes, and habitat loss. When asked to explain what attracted him to the south coast, Dr Wysong broke out in a smile. “On a personal level I’m attracted to this stunningly beautiful region,” he said. “You can go down to the ocean and see the coastline, go into the forest — it just blows your mind how incredibly unique and special it is.”