Keith Bradby OAM

Keith is a man who has demonstrated outstanding commitment and leadership to the landcare community, having given the last 40+ years of his life to it. A person of great humour, wit and intellect he has joined the invisible threads of a powerful network of people together locally, nationally and globally all in service of grassroots work…often at Landscape scale. He is a charismatic figure, noted for his fearlessness in calling out what’s wrong, supported by an amazing memory, and has never been scared of ‘sticking it to the man!”

Published in the written form and film, he is a regular speaker at events and conferences. You will be grateful this is the short form biography (you can read the full one on the website soon) as his publication list is pages long.

Described as ‘eternally curious’, ‘extremely generous with his time’, ‘open hearted’, ‘visionary’, ‘a great mentor’ and ‘truly committed to real reconciliation with First Nation’s peoples’, this landcarer has been heard often to remark that ‘landcare is people business’, and ‘lets put the care back into landcare’.

It is, of course, Keith Bradby, CEO of Gondwana Link. It has been said that everyone has at least one book in them, about their life and their learnings.  Well Keith probably has half a dozen, and we hope he completes one soon!  We can’t list everything he has done, and everywhere he has been to share and learn, from NZ to Mexico, and Africa to Missouri, or his very interesting journey from beekeeping to private consulting, to policy roles in government!

Keith is founder and current CEO of Gondwana Link, the largest landscape scale restoration project in Australia.  Collective effort has seen tens of thousands of hectares secured by covenants and purchased, thousands of hectares restored to high ecological standards, dozens of projects underway across the main focus areas, Traditional Owners supported back on their Country, and the 16-million-hectare Great Western Woodlands recognized for its ecological values.  Gondwana Link pioneered large landscape approaches in Australia and continues to grow with a diversity of investment – and happily and determinedly, NO GOVERNMENT FUNDS!

Keith has been a Board Member and Deputy Chair of the National Landcare Network Ltd, co-founder and Chair of the WA Landcare Network a Member of the World Commission on Protected Areas – Connectivity Conservation Specialist Group Chair, Yinma Foundation, Convenor, Four Islands EcoHealth.  He informally mentors many landcarer leaders and is the ‘go to’ person for so many in WA and beyond if they have a landcare question.  We often hear the refrain “Ask Keith!”

In 2005 Keith was awarded the Medal for Excellence in Natural Resource Management from the Great Southern Development Commission, WA and in 2015 his work was acknowledged with an Order of Australia Medal ‘for service to conservation and the environment in Western Australia’.