Mary Gray OAM

As an Environmental Scientist, Mary is well qualified with B.Agr.Sc. (Melb 1970); Grad. Dip. Env. Sc. (Murdoch 1990); and M.Sc. (Env.Sc.) (Murdoch 1992). Her comprehensive Masters’ Dissertation ‘Urban Bushland in Private Ownership: mechanisms for protection and management.’ has enabled Mary to be a champion for Perth and the Swan Region’s diverse flora and fauna for over 30 years. She is a founding member (since 1992) and long term leader of the Urban Bushland Council WA Inc. (UBC) which represents over 90 community groups committed to protecting urban bushland.

Mary’s significant contributions have been recognised with Honorary Life Membership of the UBC and also of the Wildflower Society of WA. She received the CCWA’s Bessie Rischbieth Conservation Award in 2014. This award is presented to an individual who shows outstanding commitment to the WA environment, and who has had the courage to challenge government and non-government decision makers. In 2022, Mary was awarded an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) Queen’s Birthday Honours, in recognition of her contribution to conservation and the environment.

Mary was Chairman of the Landscape and Conservation Committee of the National Trust WA in the early 1990s. In 1992, Mary and Bronwen Keighery drafted a discussion paper ‘Towards an Urban Bushland Policy for the National Trust of Australia’ which was accepted by the National Trust WA in May 1993. In 1993-94 Mary prepared 10 nominations of bushland sites for the Register of the National Estate: natural environment – funded under the National Estate Grant Program. One such area was Bold Park and Adjacent Bushland (System 6 areas M46 and M47) which was then under threat of a development and being assessed by the WA EPA.

Mary has continued as an active supporter of bushland conservation. She was on the Government’s inter-agency Urban Bushland Advisory Group to guide the WA Government’s comprehensively planned major conservation initiative: Perth’s Bushplan – with 10 contributing sources was open for public comment November and December 1998. It had to be implemented. She met with the then Minister for Planning, Graham Kierath MLA who promised to get Bushplan implemented ‘before Christmas 2000’ and indeed it was launched by the Government, renamed as Bush Forever in December 2000. It comprises 287 sites representing the 26 vegetation types. Mary was then on the Bush Forever Advisory Group.

In the 1990s Mary was employed in the Office of Catchment Management under the Department of Environmental Protection working on the Swan-Avon Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) program, and then in the Swan Catchment Centre as Executive Officer to the Chair of the Swan Catchment Council, Pat Hart OAM.  Here Mary helped facilitate establishment of catchment groups in the Swan Region comprising community and government folk, and made a valuable contribution to development of the Swan Regional Strategy. The Swan Working Group is now Perth NRM.

Mary has continued to actively advocate for better bushland protection by engaging with agencies, politicians, local governments and by preparing many submissions on clearing proposals. Another major achievement was her preparation of the successful nomination on behalf of the UBC to list in August 2016 the Banksia Woodlands of the Swan Coastal Plain as an endangered ecological community under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act 1999.