Page 253 - Be Reasonable – Do It My Way , Peter E. Daly AM, My Story

CHAPTER 24 - SEAL ROCKS, MELBOURNE ZOO AND AUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPE TRUST (CONSERVATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROPERTIES)
Australian Landscape Trust
I continued to keep in touch with Pat Feilman, who had received a citation (Order of Australia)
for the magnificent work she had done during her career. I don’t think Pat ever slept and at this time she was busy setting up the Australian Landscape Trust (ALT), having been involved in the first stage of this in relation to a property near Renmark, South Australia.
That property totals some 350,000 hectares of conservation land. She was hell-bent on buying the property and spent some of her money. She then persuaded the Zoological Society of Chicago who were at that time looking for opportunities to expand into other countries to contribute. Then the two of them managed to talk the Prime Minister of the day, who was Paul Keating, into providing half the money and so the project came to life.
It was huge task for Pat so she arranged for Chicago to second Dr Pam Parker to join the operation in Australia and also forged ties with the Melbourne Zoological Board. Everything went extremely well and during that period, including an initiative to involve the local community in the project. This resulted in them becoming volunteers. This continues to today.
As I said earlier, I kept in touch with Pat Feilman and she used to tell me about the successes she had had, but she never had success in appointing a CEO. Poor old CEO’s just could not manage Pat because indirectly she never ever gave up control. While I was nothing to do with ALT, nevertheless, she used to ask me to look at the insurances and eventually Geoff Peacock who was the General Manager Underwriting of NW became an Advisor to ALT and the Zoological Board on a pro bono basis.
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