The Coorong Environmental Trust was formed by a group of concerned local people with a genuine desire to protect, preserve and improve the ecology of the Lakes and Coorong Ramsar site. The trust acts as a repository for scientific information and undertakes research to ensure the viable future of these waterways.
The trust was formed by way of a trust deed entitled the Coorong Environmental Trust Deed made on the 28 of January 2020.
Founding Trust Members
Ken Sawers
Farmer and Landowner in the Coorong District
Faith Coleman
Faith Coleman is a estuarine ecologist or naturalist. With both parents and stepparents working in the biology, ecology and productivity of Salinas, lagoons and estuaries, Faith was (quite literally) born with her feet firmly planted in saline mud. She spent her childhood exploring tidal deltas and saline wetlands in some of the most remote regions of Australia.
Garry Hera-Singh
Born in 1956 at Tailem Bend (nearest hospital) there after attended the Meningie kindergarten and Meningie Area School. I have lived, worked, and played sport in the Meningie district for most of my working life.
I started fishing, working for my grandfather in 1974 and continued until 1976. After nearly two years with less than a handful of days off from work I ventured to the Montreal Olympics. The fun times whetted my appetite for further travel plans to Europe.
Rosa Hillam
Rosa is a professional artist, with a bachelor’s in visual art and Culture from Curtin University a Masters in Cross-disciplinary Art and Design from University of New South Wales (COFA). Her work is across all mediums but prefers oil paintings and sculpture.
Rosa is a social statement artist, using art to raise awareness and engage with the broader community, in relation to issues of concern. These issues include drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, mental health and the never-ending ecological and water challenges facing the River Murray.
Eric (Rick) Martin
Eric (Rick) Martin is a second-generation glazier in the Coorong district. In 1999 he, along with his family, purchased the Woods Well Station property, overlooking the Southern Lagoon of the Coorong.
After he observed the deteriorating ecology of the lagoon, he became interested in supporting the development of the Coorong Environmental Trust and the possibility of returning the Coorong, as a whole, to the flourishing, wetland of significance, that it once was.
Bruce Harold Brooks
Bruce and his wife, Janette, live at Finnis, on the banks of the Finnis River. They have an olive grove and graze Wiltipoll sheep and a few steers.
He attended Flinders University, obtaining a BSc, Hons in Meteorology and Oceanography. As a student in 1972 he was involved with a research project on Lake Albert and has been interested in the health of the Coorong since then.
Dr Jonathan Sobels
BSc (Biology) (Flinders University); Grad Dip Business (Curtin University); PhD (Charles Sturt University); Grad Dip Education (University of Adelaide).
Jonathan has worked as an academic for 24 years in Human Geography - the study of people in their physical natural and built environments. Prior to this he worked in agri-business for 17 years in conservation farming, seed production and revegetation at scale.
Colin Koch AM
Colin has an arts and events background, notably as Marketing Director for the Adelaide Festival (1986-1994), a founder and Marketing Director of WOMADelaide (1992-2001) and its managing body Arts Projects Australia (1996-2001), and GM of the peak body for visual arts in APY Lands, Ku Arts (2001-2007). He has sailed the Lakes and Coorong over some fifty years and has a property on the southern end of the Coorong North Lagoon. Colin is a passionate advocate for the Coorong and Lakes.