September–October 2015 113Twice a year we give grants to support adventure and
conservation nationwide. Here’s the latest crop of recipients.R
ECIPIENTS OF Society
funds in 2015 include
long-time AGS adventurer
Lloyd Godson, who is aiming to
provide opportunities for unstruc-
tured outdoor play through his
Nature School pilot program in the
bush of coastal New South Wales.
We are also funding the NSW
Wildlife Information Rescue and
Education Service (WIRES) to
build a flight aviary for injured or
orphaned birds of prey. And we’re
supporting filmmakers Edward
Saltau and Daniel Hunter, who are
getting behind the lens and on the
trail of the cassowary, one of
Australia’s biggest birds.
Rebecca Wellard from the
Centre for Marine Science and
Technology at Curtin University in
Western Australia is getting the
funds she needs to study orcas in
Bremer Bay, while Jack Tatler from
the University of Adelaide is being
supported to research dingo
populations in remote northern
South Australia.
Another natural-history project
will help Dominic Lawler of
Deakin University study newly
discovered Burrunan dolphins at
Port Phillip bay, Victoria. A
smartphone app guide to the flora
of south-western Australia, being
created by John Charles Ryan at
Edith Cowan University in Perth,
WA, is another of the new projects,Funding far and wide
and will be freely available to the
public to download and use.
A series of creative, brave
adventurers are also the recipients
of AGS grants in this funding
round. Kate Leeming will be
the first to attempt to cross
Antarctica on a bicycle – a
1850km journey, where she
will negotiate virgin terrain and
temperatures down to –40ºC.
Aussie pair Oliver Delprado and
Che Golus are attempting a
1000km-plus crossing of the
European Alps, using a combina-
tion of paragliding and walking.
Ian Vickers has received support
from us in his epic unassisted
crossing of the Simpson Desert,
taking in 1100 sand dunes over
more than 400km.
Following in the footsteps
of Belinda Ritchie – our 2014
Young Adventurer of the Year
(see AG 124) – are Alienor Le
Gouvello and her three brumbies.
She is completing a solo trek of
the east coast’s Bicentennial
National Trail over a period of
8–10 months in 2015.
Last, but certainly not least,
is AGS expert adviser Tim Jarvis’s
‘25zero’ project, which will see
the environmentalist climb all
the equatorial mountains that
still support glaciers, to highlight
the impact of climate change (see
AG 127).SOCIETY FUNDR AISERA
T ONE TIME, most of
Australia was home to at
least one of our four species
of quoll. In the past few hundred
years, however, the little carnivores
have been reduced to fragmented
populations on the edges of the
mainland and Tasmania. Northern
and spotted-tailed quolls are today
endangered, while the western quoll
is listed as vulnerable. By donating,
you’ll be helping the Australian
Wildlife Conservancy (AW C),
which is training northern quolls to
avoid eating toxic cane toads. You’ll
also be supporting the Foundation
for Australia’s Most Endangered
species (FAME); this conservation
group helped to re-establish
mainland populations of eastern
quoll, using animals from Tasmania,
after the species became extinct
across much of the continent in the
1960s (see AG 82). FAME is now
reintroducing western quolls to
the Flinders Ranges National Park,
in South Australia.OR VISIT http://www.australian-
geographic.com.au/society,
or send a cheque to: The Australian
Geographic Society administrator, Level 9,
54–58 Park Street, Sydney NSW 2000.Keep it quoll-it y!
Struggling quoll populations
need urgent support to survive.DONATE
Use the free viewa
app to scan this page
and donate
to our appeal.Your Society is edited by Natsumi PenberthyCOURTESY FOCUS MAGAZINE; DOLPHINS: KATE CHARLTON-ROBB/AUSTRALIAN MARINE MAMMAL CONSERVATION FOUNDATION/
Tursiops australis; QUOLL: COURTESY JIRI LOCHMAN/Dasyurus geoffroiiWild kids. Lloyd Godson’s
open-air Nature School.Burranan dolphin.
a new species in coastal Studying
VIC.