Clive Cook (Chair)

Clive started work as a ranger in Tasmania, New Zealand and Kakadu National Park. Through his executive leadership roles in Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service, Clive delivered significant outcomes in protected areas and wildlife management at local, state, Commonwealth and international jurisdictions.

Following his distinguished executive leadership career, Clive coordinated the Protected Area Management Course of study offered by the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Queensland. Clive also provided assistance to the United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organisation in Fiji, contributing to a program designed for Biodiversity Conservation and Protected Area Management practitioners. Clive currently runs his own consultancy business.

Clive holds a degree in Urban and Regional Planning and majored in natural resource management and environmental law. Clive is a Certified Environmental Practitioner and Member of the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand and also a member of the IUCN and the WCPA. He is also a Justice of the Peace (Qualified) and member of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland and the Queensland Maritime Museum. Clive also serves on the Skyrail Rainforest Foundation Board.

Clive’s acute interest is in the recognition, development and promotion of excellence in governance and management of protected areas. Clive believes that the PAC is an excellent platform to shape the knowledge, skills and professional development needed to sustain protected areas into the future

Tony J English

Tony began his career in 1992 with the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service as an archaeologist and cultural heritage specialist. While with the NPWS he was responsible for documenting the archaeological and cultural values of new protected areas, and initiated and led the Aboriginal People and Biodiversity Project which sought to challenge the focus of heritage assessment on archaeological features rather than the broad suite of values Traditional Owners ascribe to Country. The project was carried out collaboratively with Gumbaingirr and Muruwuri communities in Northern and Western NSW and contributed to a significant shift in heritage practice in NSW.

After finishing his time with NPWS in 2003 as a ranger at Royal National Park, Tony took on the role of park manager Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park for almost two years and learnt many important lessons about joint management, and community led planning. In 2005 Tony took up the role of Chief Ranger Grampians District with Parks Victoria (PV) and finished his time with PV as manager of the Western Basalt District in Central Victoria.

Tony is now the Deputy Chief Fire Officer, Grampians Region with the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning. In this role he is responsible for the fire and fuel management programs across public land in the Region. This includes a significant fire ecology program focused on both landscape scale, and specific threatened species focused questions. Tony has over twenty five years of experience in land and fire management and performs senior operational fire roles during fire suppression and planned burning. He has published widely on topics such as cultural heritage management in protected areas, planned burning, critical incident stress management and the recognition and management of staff member tacit knowledge.

Glenys Jones

Glenys Jones is a founding member of the PAC initiative and a member of the Protected Areas Practitioners Committee. 

She holds a first-class Honours degree in Science (UNSW) and has over 30 years’ experience working in science, reserve management planning and evaluation. Her area of specialist expertise is management effectiveness evaluation and reporting. Glenys developed the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service’s approaches, systems and tools for evaluating and reporting on management effectiveness, including State of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area evaluation reports. Her pioneering work in evaluation has been recognised through a variety of prestigious awards including the Australasian Evaluation Society Award for best publication in evaluation (2005). 

Glenys believes that to achieve informed, effective and transparent adaptive management, we need to monitor and report demonstrable evidence of management results and outcomes. Science has an important role to play in effective protected areas management. 

Nahar Muhammed

Nahar has been engaged in the planning, development and research on Protected Area Tourism for almost 15 years. He has specialised in Protected Area tourism as part of his MPhil, subsequently having a chance to work with different state governments and agencies in planning, implementing and overseeing tourism activities in different protected areas of the country.  

Nahar is currently pursuing his PhD from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Mumbai), undertaking his research in the theme “Protected Area Tourism and Host community wellbeing- A study of Similipal Tiger Reserve, Odisha”. He is also working the role of Team Leader of a project management unit of Dept of Tourism, Government of Odisha assisting Government of Odisha in planning and implementing sustainable tourism in the state particularly in Protected Areas of the state. 

Nahar is an ongoing member of the IUCN WCPA TAPAS, PUP Consortium, RAMSAR cultural committee – amongst others.  

Abhinaya Pathak

Abhinaya has been working in protected areas in Nepal for more than 6 years. As a protected manager, Abinaya is working for the conservation of biodiversity, specifically, endangered flora and fauna with the coordination and cooperation of local community.  

For Abhinaya, participating with PAC practitioner's committee is an opportunity to gain new ideas and knowledge, whilst sharing the experiences that he has gathered from his time working in the protected areas of Nepal. He believes that protected area management - embedded with various factors such as ecological, socio-cultural, economic factors - is complex demanding. In this context, Abhinaya believes a PA manager must be educated and fully aware of all relevant factors to be an effective in achieving their objectives.  

Andrew Smith

Andrew retired from the Tasmanian State Service two years ago after 40 years working in Protected Area management, conservation and community engagement across Parks and Wildlife Service, Resource Management and Conservation and the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens. He began his career as a trainee ranger with Parks and Wildlife Service, then as Education Officer.

He moved to the botanic gardens as Education and Interpretation Officer and worked within a global network through the Botanic Gardens Conservation International, and the Australian Network for Plant Conservation. As Manager Community Partnerships with Resource Management and Conservation Division, he managed Landcare Coastcare Bushcare Waterwatch Land for Wildlife and Wildcare programs and staff. The final 10 years with Parks and Wildlife Service was as Manager Community Programs, managing a creative team delivering education, interpretation, communications, events and community engagement programs.

In 1998 he founded Wildcare Inc, Tasmania's largest environmental volunteer not-for-profit organisation (8000 members) supporting reserve management and natural and cultural heritage, and was chair/co-chair for 20 years. He now has a small business offering group facilitation and engagement planning, and training in community engagement principles and practices and is an authorised civil marriage Celebrant - its all about building relationships.

Abinash Thapa Magar

Abinash is currently working as Assistant Conservation Officer in Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, Nepal. He joined this organization in January, 2013 when he started to work as Park Ranger in Chitwan National Park. 

Abinash has experiences working in different physiographic regions of Nepal, from Terai plains to mountainous protected areas for the conservation of rich natural resources. He believes PAC’s PA practitioners committee will be a great platform for developing and understanding the present and future needs of sustainable and inclusive PA conservation programs, will be helpful in addressing the current problems and issues on PA management plans and strategies in a collaborative approach across the Asia-Pacific region.  

Michael Treanor

Michael started life as a remote area track worker in Alpine National Park in the 1990’s, then as a ranger on Mt Buffalo NP and Alpine NP. Since then he’s been a ranger in Namadgi National Park and Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve in the ACT, and the Defence Environment and Heritage Manager for Department of Defence in SA and Victoria. Fortunately, he saw the light and got back in to protected areas becoming the Area Manager for Royal National Park in NSW NPWS, followed by Sydney Harbour NP and Kamay Botany Bay NP. In 2018 he returned to Parks Victoria and is the District Manager for Waterways on the beautiful Yarra River. 

He has advocated and represented Rangers and protected area workers for over 15 years as vice president of the NSW Protected Area Workers Association (PAWA), and vice president of the Victorian Rangers Association currently (now Assoc. of Rangers and Conservationists Vic). Michael has a Master of Protected Area Governance and Management at University of Tasmania, including the PAC ‘Healthy 

Country Planning and adaptive management for protected areas’ course, was involved in the 2014 World Parks Congress, and contributed to the ‘Protected Area Governance and Management’ book. He has promoted and encouraged fellow protected area workers around Australasia and the Pacific to apply for the PALRC / PAC scholarships for many years and believes that PAC can greatly support the future of professional development and collaboration across the region. 

He has a passion for helping nature’s protectors and the unique profession of the ranger and protected area managers.  

Sarah Brugler

Sarah is an experienced environmental law professional and is currently employed as Legal Counsel at Trust for Nature, Victoria's dedicated private land conservation organisation. Sarah is an expert in the legal mechanisms used to achieve private land conservation in Australia and is interested in their contribution towards Australia’s protected areas network and more broadly, the role of private land conservation mechanisms in environmental law.

Prior to joining Trust for Nature, Sarah worked as a lawyer for Environmental Justice Australia focusing on EJA's nature protection law reform work. She has also previously worked as a lawyer for ClientEarth's biodiversity program in London focusing on the implementation of European biodiversity laws relating to marine protected areas in English waters.   

Sarah commenced her legal careers as a commercial property lawyer for Eversheds LLP (UK) and Henry Davis York (Australia).

Bruce Jefferies

Bruce Jefferies (BJ) has worked as an advisor / consultant and practitioner specializing in: Protected Area Management Planning, Trans-boundary PA Establishment and Management, Training and Capacity Building, PA Project design and assessment, Project management, Biodiversity monitoring and evaluation systems, World Heritage Site Appraisal, Climate Change Ecosystem-based Adaptation, Access and Benefit Sharing.

BJ ha an undergraduate qualification in Parks Recreation and Tourism from Lincoln University and a MSc in Protected Landscape Management. In 2019 awarded Alumni International Medal from Lincoln University. This award was, in part, a recognition of my up-to-date knowledge and experience on both the theory and practice for conserving large, complex landscape scale systems. My experience in this area included developing the planning framework for Thailand’s Western Forest Complex which involved integrating 17 Protected Areas (including 2 World Heritage properties) and covered an area of 17,000 km