Phillip Toyne – a magnificent Australian: Bob Brown.

From Bob Brown …

Phillip Toyne piloted the Landcare revolution with its enormous environmental, employment and economic benefits for rural and regional Australia. Landcare has drawn world-wide plaudits.

He combined an ardent advocacy for Aboriginal custody of the land with an historic new engagement with government – in particular the Hawke Government – for breakthroughs like the hand-back of Uluru to its Traditional Owners, the World Heritage listing and protection of Queensland’s Wet Tropical (Daintree) Rainforests, and the enlargement of both the Kakadu and Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Areas.

His presidency of the board of Bush Heritage Australia saw it grow into one of the world’s top private land conservation organisations, protecting vital wildlife habitats right across the continent.

Phillip Toyne has left our nation, and our planet, greener and better equipped, both socially and politically, to face the very great environmental challenges which lie ahead.

I have a particularly fond recollection of leaning against the blade of a bulldozer and talking tactics with Phillip in Tasmania’s misty Lemonthyme Forest, near Cradle Mountain, in the 1980s.That forest is now an important part of the Cradle Mountain – Lake St Clair National Park.

Phillip Toyne was a magnificent Australian.
Jenny Weber, The Bob Brown Foundation