Saving lions and rewilding our world with Donalea Patman

We are in what scientists call the 6th mass extinction with wildlife disappearing at a rate of 1000 times the natural extinction rate.  

Today’s warm table conversation is a big one.

We share tears and fears with Donalea Patman who, 12 years ago, locked eyes with a lion - one of the world’s most majestic and revered creatures – and from that moment she has dedicated her career to ending the cruel and barbaric industry of canned hunting, followed by the closing of the domestic trade in ivory and rhino horn in Australia and worked on modernising the legal trade in endangered species (one of the key drivers of extinction).

Season 2 of My Warm Table Podcast is amplifying people of passion and purpose. Donalea has to be one of the most passionate and purposeful people I’ve met. She sold her house and started a charity called For the Love of Wildlife (FLOW) which is dedicated to restoring the essential connection between all living things to bring our planet back to balance.

She is changing the world and for her work she was the proud recipient of the Animal Action Award, International Fund for Animal Welfare ad was named in the 2017 Queen’s Birthday honours list and awarded an Order of Australia Media for her work for animal welfare.

Donalea is a Freo girl at heart and after shining a spotlight on the global issue of canned hunting and predator breeding, she is now turning her vast energy and wisdom to rewilding WA.  Partnering with Quenda Ecologics to build autonomous rovers that mimic what marsupials did in rural Australia before they disappered.  This ambitious and unique project aims to regenerate degraded WA landscapes at scale.

So grab a cup of tea and join us around the warm table.  Prepare to be outraged… and educated ….and also deeply inspired by Donalea and the work she is doing for mother earth, for our future and For the Love of Wildlife.

Warm thanks to:
Sponsor: Females Over Forty-five Fitness in Victoria Park
Sound Engineering: Damon Sutton
Music: William A Spence
... and all our generous and inspiring guests around the warm table this season!

Transcript

Sonia Nolan: 0:00

Welcome to My Warm Table. I'm Sonia Nolan and season two of this podcast about passion and purpose is brought to you by Females Over 45 Fitness or FOFF in Victoria Park.

Introductory Voice Over of Previous Guests: 0:14

My name is Kate Chaney. My name is Bonnie Davies. My name is Madeleine King. My name is Valerio Fantinelli. My name is Lyn Beazley. My name is Alexandra Helen Flanagan Hi, my name is Sharon Todd. My name is Lucy Cooke and I'm the CEO of SpaceDraft. I'm the first Aboriginal female funeral director. CEO and founder of Motion by the Ocean. I'm a psychologist and a professor in psychology at Curtin University. CEO and founder of Lionheart Camp for Kids. Around My Warm Table. Or listening on Sonia Nolan's My Warm Table. Just sharing a yarn with her.

Sonia Nolan: 0:37

We are in what scientists call the sixth mass extinction, with wildlife disappearing at a rate of 1000 times the natural extinction rate. Today's Warm Table conversation is a big one. We share tears and fears with Donalea Patman, who 12 years ago locked eyes with a lion, one of the world's most majestic and revered creatures, and from that moment, she has dedicated her life to ending the cruel and barbaric industry of trophy hunting and the Trade in Endangered Species. Season Two of My Warm Table podcast is amplifying people of passion and purpose. Donalea has to be one of the most passionate and purposeful people I've met. She sold her house and started a charity called For The Love of Wildlife, which is dedicated to restoring the essential connection between all living things to bring our planet back to balance. She's changing the world. And for her work, she was the proud recipient of the Animal Action Award, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, and was named in the 2017 Queen's Birthday Honours List and awarded an Order of Australian medal for the work in animal welfare. Donalea is a Freo girl at heart and after shining a spotlight on the global issue of trophy hunting. She is now turning her vast energy and wisdom to rewilding WA. It's called the Quenda Project, and it mimics the way nature would approach a landscape using robotics instead. This ambitious and unique project aims to regenerate degraded Western Australian landscapes at scale. So grab a cup of tea and join us around the Warm Table, prepare to be outraged and educated. And also so deeply inspired by Donalea and the work she is doing for Mother Earth, and for our future, and for the love of wildlife. Donalea, thank you so much for joining me around the warm table.

Donalea Patman: 2:39

It's lovely to be with you. And thank you so much for the invitation.

Sonia Nolan: 2:43

That's great. I want to start with, I think the start, which is- I'd love you to talk us through the moment where you locked eyes with a lion.

Donalea Patman: 2:56

And changed my world forever.

Sonia Nolan: 2:58

Changed your world and changing our world forever.

Donalea Patman: 3:01

Yeah, thank you. Um, well, in 2011, I found this incredible man called Andrew Harvey, who gave a speech in

Sonia Nolan: 3:06

I'm feeling quite emotional as you're describing South Melbourne. And in that room, I just was amazed at what he was sharing. He, what you would call a modern day mystic, has authored many, many books and was running a workshop in South Africa at the White Lion Trust and I just knew I had to be there. So I went on this journey with Andrew and other participants. And the very first morning it's dark, you wearing headlamps you're getting into a vehicle, you've not been out on the African savanna before and we ventured out. And as the sun was rising, we came around the corner and the vehicle startled the lone pride. There were I think five of them at that stage; the lion and lioness and then their cubs, but there was some adult males and Nabu, who was the female. And they sat up to kind of greet us and Linda Tucker, who is the CEO of the White Lion Trust had basically said to us, "you're not to make any sound. Don't lock eyes with the lions. You bow your head, and you are to be really still when we see them." And so I'm sitting there and one of the young adults, the boys locked eyes with me and I could not take my eyes away from him knowing that I shouldn't be locking eyes. And this incredible emotion rose up in me and I was just silently sobbing at the majestic beauty of these incredible lions. I couldn't believe something could be so exquisite. that, Donalea, I think we're both sitting here with tears in our eyes. Gosh, what a moment.

Unknown: 5:06

It was extraordinary. So to think that I'd never seen lions in the wild. And I was just awestruck by their magnificence. And so we went back to camp for our breakfast. And then early, and then kind of in mid morning, Andrew and Linda started presenting and talking about the plight of lions and how they are vulnerable and facing extinction. And there's this horrendous industry called canned hunting, where they're breeding lions, purely to be shut in enclosures. And so again, I'm sitting there and I'm, this primal rage rises up in me. And I have to stop Andrew and Linda and say, I don't know what to do with this. I am so enraged right now. And I knew in that moment, I had the capacity to kill somebody because I was so angry. And it was a shock, because I'm a nice girl. You know, how could I be -how could I have this that I could kill somebody? And it was a shock to my system. But it was a shock at how enraged I was. And Andrew Harvey looked at me and said,"Now that you've been brought to your knees and your indignant rage and your despair and your grief over this issue, why don't you go out into the world and do something about it?" And I kind of took that on and processed or whatever I was kind of in at the time, and went back to Australia and started knocking on doors. And nobody wanted to talk to me, none of the conservation groups, animal rights groups, nobody wanted to address this issue. And also, what's to be noted is, Australian volunteers are duped by this industry because they think they're raising cubs to be rewilded. And the reality is that they are participating in the supply chain of raising hubs for this industry. So it's just unscrupulous it's run by really, you know, terrible, immoral people. It's full of cruelty, it's barbaric. And Australians were participating. So I went-

Sonia Nolan: 7:23

Did that further enrage you? The fact that Australia was unknowingly participating in this.

Unknown: 7:30

Yeah, I was shocked that we were and we didn't know better. I was also shocked at the lack of response from conservation groups. And so it was just one of those eye opening things that you just think how could nobody want to talk to me about this, and oh, so.

Sonia Nolan: 7:51

You're still really emotional about this.

Donalea Patman: 7:52

Oh, it changed my life. And, and I was invited back in 2012, which was, you know, astrologically, if you're into astro-speak, it was the main gateway, which was the 21st of December 2012, from my understanding a gateway or a portal for us to elevate our consciousness as humanity. But what it facilitated was on the sacred Heartlands is that we had a ceremony to honour the earth and, you know, the beautiful wild beings that, unfortunately, are facing extinction, we're in an extinction crisis. And, and at that kind of gathering, I met Pippa Hankinson. And she went away and started making the documentary Bloodlines. And I came back to Australia and just thought I need to do more. And so in the following year, we were leading into a federal election, I was getting all the marketing material in my letterbox, you know, things that, you know, please let us know what, what was some of- what some of the topics are. Education, taxes, roads, and I just said, extinction, and specifically extinction of lions, you know, being the king of the jungle, the most iconic species on the planet, used as symbols of courage and royalty and, you know, used by companies around the world as to signify, you know, bravery, etc. So lots of brand identification as well. And yet on our watch, they were going to be disappearing. So I suppose there was that I just kind of had this feeling that if we couldn't save lions, we've got no hope of saving anything else. So I then started writing to some of the candidates. And I got a response from Jason Wood who said, if if what I was telling him was true, then he'd do something about it. And he was elected. And so I gave him a few months to settle into the job and then I was knocking on his door. And that's that's how we began doing the work, he was shocked to find that there were Australians that were participating in the hunting and bringing the trophies back. And so with Greg Hunt, who was the Environment Minister at the time, we set about, with Australia, banning the importation of lion trophies and body parts, because we found that trophies- if hunters can't bring home their trophies, they're not interested in the kill. And so Australia, that work we did in a record time of 18 months. It was announced in March 2015. And I held a big event at fed square in Melbourne. And it was then followed by the Netherlands, France and the US who were one of the biggest components or the contributors to this trade. And that was the significant pieces that the US implemented really strict import laws. And you could only bring in a trophy, if you could prove that it had conservation benefit. And of course, trophy hunting has no conservation benefit. So that was the first piece of work.

Sonia Nolan: 11:03

That is huge. And I'm just staggered., Donalea, to think that Australians would go overseas to partake in what they might see is a sport or some recreational activity, which is to hunt and kill animals, such as lions. And then what were they bringing back? What was their trophy? What was the...

Unknown: 11:24

So the industry is sort of transformed a bit, but it's really a stuffed animal. So you're either bringing back a skin, or you're bringing back the head and the skin to be taxidermied. Or you're bringing back claws, teeth. Bones.

Sonia Nolan: 11:43

I'm so- I'm so shocked. I'm so shocked that that was happening up until 2015.

Unknown: 11:48

Well, yes, well, the reality is that you can, you know, you can shoot anything. In South Africa, there's a whole menu of animals that you can kill and a lot of them endangered. And so it depends on you know, the, the more critically endangered they are, the more expensive they are to kill. So you have this whole industry that has basically moved from farming cattle, to farming wildlife, because it's very lucrative,

Sonia Nolan: 12:19

Because then you put them out to the range for people to come and shoot them, kill them take the trophies home.

Unknown: 12:26

Yeah, well, this isn't even putting them out to the range. This is relocating them to an area that's fenced and when you relocate a lion, the first thing it does is go to the fence line because it doesn't know the area. And then these guys drive in and the trophy hunters, or they call them professional hunters will have the licences etc. And they will drive the vehicle back and forth making it feel like you're driving for miles. And you're really in an enclosed area. And these animals have been drugged, relocated and disorientated and then also used to come into a vehicle to be fed. So there's no hunt.

Sonia Nolan: 13:04

No there's no hunt. Oh, that's just it's tragic. It's tragic. After that experience of being in South Africa at that time, and that very first moment where you heard about, you know, these atrocities, and about extinction. And I do want to cover extinction, and coming up in a little while, because I think that's, that's a whole other conversation as well. But you gave up your career, you sold your house, and you self funded your work to set up your own, not for profit organisation called For The Love of Wildlife, so that you could absolutely live this opportunity to make a difference.

Unknown: 13:46

Well, yes, because of the work that I was doing with

Sonia Nolan: 13:47

Yeah. Because that takes an enormous amount of Jason Wood, and surprisingly, it was with the Liberal Party. And everybody was shocked at that. But you know, they do have a courage. So where do you draw your courage from? great environmental record. They just haven't done anything more recently. So Jason, who was championing this work - I went to one of his events, and he introduced me to Malcolm Turnbull, and all I had was a business card with my corporate design work. And I had this thought that am I going to be serious about this? Or am I just going to kind of tap into it? And then really, yeah, it was really a life changing question of self. And I really thought I have this one window, and am I

Unknown: 14:37

I think having friends who are constantly keeping me gonna give it my all or am I gonna, just faff about. So that's what, yeah, I launched For The Love of Wildlife in February 2014. And decided that this is what I needed to do is that I wasn't prepared to, you know, know that we're in an extinction crisis and do nothing about it. real, I think the more- I suppose I have a history of personal development and spiritual curiosity, and how I came across people like Andrew Harvey, who is the person who coined the term 'sacred activism'. And he was very much about that if you have a spiritual life, it's not okay just to kind of sit back and meditate on the world, you have to be active. And if you see the wrongs of the world, then it's your responsibility to make them right. And so I suppose through that, that time, Andrew really encouraged me to do, you know, to take the leap of faith. And also, I just, there was just something in me that woke up and just said, I can't tolerate it. So it's kind of when your passion kicks in, I kind of knew- I had this belief system that- I knew that the first kind of 50 years of my life would be about cleaning up my own act. And that's probably the whole personal development piece. And then I knew I could be effective in the world. And that's kind of how the timing has been is for me to really step into why I'm here. And to follow that intuition and passion and how I formed For The Love of Wildlife.

Sonia Nolan: 16:33

There is something so powerful about a person and a woman stepping into her 50s. There really is, there's just so much that sits between, you know, the experience and the wisdom, and that courage to come to action. So you are embodying all of that, Donalea, oh, my goodness.

Unknown: 16:54

I just don't think that's the thing, if you can put your rage into passionate action, it's amazing what you can achieve in the world. Because all of the whole time I was doing the work that Jason Wood I was told I was wasting my time. What are you doing working with a liberal member? Conservation groups, we're saying this work takes 20 years, you know, don't call us, you know, you're really not at the table. And I just wouldn't take it. I just thought no, there's another way around. And I suppose through my naivety and inexperience, I found the cracks in the system, and just kind of went for it. And I've been, you know, and that's the thing. Now, I still have that, that drives me to do more, because I just love this planet that we live on. And I have a particular passion for wildlife. And I'm just shocked that there's only 4% left on the planet when there's 96% of humans in agriculture. So we've got a lot of work to do.

Sonia Nolan: 17:51

We have and, you know, I did want to cover extinction. You've gone there, so thank you. So, you know, we are in what the scientists are calling the sixth mass extinction with wildlife disappearing at a rate of 1000 times the natural extinction rate. Is that- is that correct?

Donalea Patman: 18:07

Yes, it is. And Australia has the highest rate of extinction in mammals on the planet.

Sonia Nolan: 18:14

Is that so? Tell me more about that.

Unknown: 18:16

Well, we have an extraordinary kind of record. And whilst we used to be at the forefront of conservation, we are lagging, I suppose. And there's another piece of work to talk about. And that's the domestic trade in ivory and rhino horn when we were addressing the legal Trade in Endangered Species. And we found that that is one of the drivers of extinction. But yeah, Australia has the highest rate of land clearing compared to Indonesia and Brazil, we have an extinction crisis, we have degraded lands, we really have a lot to kind of step up and to repatriate I suppose. And I think the other part of it is that when we met with- we met with 33 countries in addressing the legal Trade in Endangered Species, and Australia just isn't at the table, we're two decades behind the rest of the world. So we really have to get a move on and we have to get really courageous and really start doing some significant work.

Sonia Nolan: 19:20

Yeah, so I want to sort of look at two sides of a coin here. So on one side where Australia actually led the action to become the first country to ban importation of lion trophies and body parts and that was just you know, an amazing effort on your part, Donalea, which actually saw you win a Queen's Birthday Honours and an Order of Australia, so congratulations and well deserved on that, my goodness. But on the second side of the coin, we've got, you know, a lot of work to do. It's staggering, you know, and shame on me, but I've never really sat and thought about this. I'm so delighted that you've come to talk to me around the Warm Table because I dare say it's, it's something that a lot of us haven't thought about. You know, we see our beautiful kangaroos and we see our beautiful wildlife and we just expect that it's always going to be there. But you're right about the land clearing. Now what is sitting behind that?

Unknown: 20:13

Well, you only have to- well, here I am back in Perth. So after being in Melbourne for 15 years where I've done a lot of the political work, I moved back to Perth late last year.

Sonia Nolan: 20:23

Which is your hometown.

Donalea Patman: 20:24

Which is- I'm a Freo girl. Yeah. And I was appalled and shocked to see how much development there is between the city and all the way up to Two Rocks. And the same if you go south, there's just a sea of colorbond roofs and there's no corridors. We've got a crisis in WA in regards to the Black Cockatoos, the Red Tail cockatoos, etc. No corridors. So it's part of the-

Sonia Nolan: 20:51

And when you say corridors, you mean nature corridors, don't you?

Unknown: 20:54

Yeah, wildlife corridors. Yeah. So we're allowing developers to just basically bulldoze, and we're not considering the environment. So it's just, we have to rethink the whole way we do everything. And if we continue with the business as usual, and at the moment, it feels like it's kind of the wild west where everybody's kind of doing a big kind of grab before they know, the world is shifting, because Europe is, you know, you look at what's happening with carbon taxes, and you know, tariffs, etc. in regards to trade. In Australia, even though we're not kind of wanting to address all of those things, it's being imposed on us because we're just not, you know, thinking far into the future. And I think that comes around with short election cycles, nobody's doing any long term thinking. And we're not rethinking this space. We're just continuing exactly what's caused this issue.

Sonia Nolan: 21:51

You touched on the ivory trade. So tell me more about that.

Unknown: 21:57

So after we got the ban, in 2015, I was walking down Chapel Street and went into a brick and brac shop and found ivory for sale.

Sonia Nolan: 22:08

This is in Melbourne?

Donalea Patman: 22:09

This is in Melbourne. And I thought surely

Sonia Nolan: 22:09

You keep leaving me speechless. Every time we come not, this can't be ivory. Anyway, took photos and checked with a few conservation groups as to whether it was new ivory or old ivory, because there's a loophole that if ivory is older than 1975, I think, as long as you've got your CITES permits and CITES is the Convention on The International Trade of Endangered Species, that you're allowed to own ivory. And so I made some calls, and found out that we have a legal domestic trade in ivory and rhino horn. So whilst there are international agreements in regards to trade, if it's in country, everybody expects that it's legal. And what we do know is that ivory is being traded, and their traders using things like soaking ivory in tea, and it makes it look old. And people to the end of one of your really interesting experiences. I want can't age it just by sight. And so nobody's prepared to pay for DNA testing or whatever, I think it's carbon testing, or whatever it is to age ivory. So auction houses and antique stores and brick and brac stores are basically selling product without any checks and balances. So again, I was kind of shocked that this was happening. We did a massive survey in Melbourne, to go back to extinction, because I just want to read out just asking the public what they thought, and they all- I think it was something like 86% thought that we had already addressed it, that by now we should have things in place that say it's not okay to trade. So because of this, we thought, well, we need to raise public awareness. So I decided to host a big event in the city of Melbourne, where we hired a crusher, and we invited the public to bring their ivory to be destroyed because basically the only value ivory has is on a living elephant. And to kill elephants, to poach elephants or rhinos purely to trade in horn or ivory is just, in this day and age when we're in an extinction crisis, is horrific. And so that's what we did. And then getting international press around that event triggered a parliamentary inquiry and the parliamentary inquiry was held around Australia and overwhelming evidence and information given as to how appalling the trade and how rampant the trade is in Australia. And how much of it could be new ivory, so newly poached ivory. So yes, so that was the big piece. And then with that, Susan Lee in 2019 announced that Australia would join other countries in closing the domestic trade in ivory and rhino horn. But of course then we went into a pandemic and the Khans been kicked down the road, and none of the states and territories know anything about the fact that the Federal Minister had made that announcement because it's up to the states and territories to enact a ban. So all that work for years of work is just sitting. So it's really shocking that it takes NGOs to fill the void that's left by government on issues like this, when we're in an extinction crisis. And iconic species are being killed for ivory and rhino horn. these statistics that I found on your website. So the For The Love of Wildlife website. So again, it's the greatest loss of biodiversity since the dinosaurs is the moment we are in, but this time, it's caused by humans, the extinction crisis that we've got. And so some of the planet's most iconic species will soon be gone forever, unless we do something about it. And this is your, your great calling and calling to us. So tigers, so studies show that there are as few as 3000 surviving in the wild today. 3000 tigers in the wild that's it. An elephant, so we've just talked about, 30% of African savanna elephants were lost in just seven years and continue to be killed at a rate of one every 15 minutes. And is that due to the canned hunting trade as well? Or the poaching?

Unknown: 26:37

Yeah, this is poaching. So things like this is the extraordinary thing about nature is that nature has its own field of intelligence. And if you have a capacity to be able to be quiet and silent, and still enough to be able to tap into that. There's this extraordinary thing that happens. And to give you an example, when we talk about elephants, elephants know that they are being poached. And there's recorded information with elephants, say in Angola, where it's a high poaching area that they now know, to travel at night, and they are travelling in herds of up to 500 Elephants, because they know that they are being- they're under threat. And Botswana had a trophy hunting ban, while for many years, with the last president, Khama. And that country became known as a refuge for elephants. So you had elephants coming in from Angola and other countries. And so then Botswana had a problem with too many elephants. And so now they have, there's a new president. And unfortunately, trophy hunting is now legal again in that country. And so we're seeing the massacre of elephants. So we've got this. You know, we've got iconic species, and not just in countries like Africa, but if anybody's been to Africa, they will understand that she has this capacity to kind of get into your blood. And the species that exist there are so extraordinary, they really are. It's really something and why wouldn't we want to preserve something as beautiful as an African continent, and similarly with Australia and other, you know, other countries, we've got extraordinary wildlife. So my point back to extinction is that one of the things that people don't realise is that there is a legal Trade in Endangered Species. I'm not talking about the illegal trade, I'm talking about the legal trade. So when we had a parliamentary inquiry, what was exposed in that is that the legal trade system of endangered species is unfit for purpose. It was established in the 1970s. Australia was one of the countries that was first to host it, and I think Malcolm Fraser championed all of that, and that system, and we're talking about one of the most lucrative trades in the world, has not been modernised since the 70s. It's paper based. It's not integrated with customs, and it allows the illegal trade to flourish through the legal trade system. So after we had our parliamentary inquiry, Dr. Lynn Johnson, who's from Nature Needs More, and her partner, Peter Lanius, and myself, met with more than 33 countries in modernising the legal Trade in Endangered Species. And for something like- I think the price was 30 million dollars that could completely be rolled out across the across the globe with all 193 signatory countries. And that would decisively close down the illegal wildlife trade. Now, we didn't see corporate conservation supporting the work, we didn't see, a lot of countries have kind of been, you know, championing this. And it was up to two small NGOs to do the work of what some of the large corporate conservation groups should have been doing. So I have gone on to do other work, but Lin is still doing this society's modernization project. And she's remarkable. She's another woman who just doesn't let go. And she's managed to get several countries on board. And that's now being rolled out. I think she's due to go to the US to speak to the US in helping with that. Doing extraordinary work. But when you think that a trade system hasn't been modernised since the 70s, it's on us, it's really appalling. When you consider how much money is invested in conservation, that that one thing hasn't been done, where it should have been the most important thing, especially in the conservation space.

Sonia Nolan: 31:06

So much of that seems like if you- if you're strategic in the way that you were working as a large conservation organisation, like you've said, that would have been one of the first things that you'd actually put on your list to tackle. So well done. You and your colleagues are actually doing something about it.

Donalea Patman: 31:23

Yeah. Well, also, too, you know, here we are on the precipice of losing, and we are everyday losing. I think that most recent report, there's 38,000 species listed on CITES soon to be a million. Like it's just gobsmacking. And yet-

Sonia Nolan: 31:41

Sorry, we're going from 38,000 listed as endangered on this extinction list

Donalea Patman: 31:45

Yeah, on the- they have trade sanctions because they're endangered,

Sonia Nolan: 31:49

Right? So we've gone from 38,000. And we're about to...

Donalea Patman: 31:52

Yes, it's moving quickly into a million species.

Sonia Nolan: 31:54

To a million species. Oh, my goodness.

Donalea Patman: 31:57

And so you see these sorts of things. And again, Lynn and I both, you know, we found that with doing the ban on lion trophies, and then addressing the domestic trade in ivory and rhino horn, we don't have the time to be doing species by species. And the other part of it too, is it's glacially slow. Even though I managed to get the ban in 18 months, and then it was four years work to get the ban. Well, it hasn't been implemented, that the ban or the domestic trade ban on ivory and rhino horn, is that we don't have another 20, 30, 50, 70 years, we are at the precipice, and we have to take bold actions, and we have to be more strategic and looking at things that are going to have the most impact on the survival of the species and the legal Trade in Endangered Species is one of the drivers of extinction. So why isn't there more interest? And why isn't every conservation group on the planet making sure that that's overhauled?

Sonia Nolan: 32:59

I've got this amazing quote from Sir David Attenborough, who you know, I assume is one of your gurus. And he says, "To restore stability to our planet, we must restore its biodiversity, the very thing that we have removed. It's the only way out of this crisis we've created, we must rewild of the world." And rewilding sits very much at the heart of what you're doing and For The Love of Wildlife.

Donalea Patman: 33:25

Yes, well, after two years of lockdown in Melbourne, it was- and I am constantly being questioned by people, it's still, great that you did a ban on lion trophies and great that you're looking at ivory and rhino horn. But what about Australian wildlife? And I suppose for me, I needed to do something that was much more practical. For The Love of Wildlife, it will be 10 years next February. And for me, doing all the political work and with things becoming more and more complex in that space. And we're challenged more and more with pandemics and other things. I just really wanted to address what was happening in our own backyard. And I think it's interesting because when Lynn and I were doing the, you know, the legal trade, we met with the trade minister from China. And he sat back in his chair and said, "You come to me in regards to the legal trade in wildlife. But I want to ask you, what are you doing about your kangaroos?" And he's right, you know, we've got an extinction crisis with our kangaroos, we have an appalling practice of what we do to joeys when the mothers are killed, you know. Oh, they just, they basically can just thrash

Sonia Nolan: 34:38

What do we do? them against the rebar and bash their heads in is considered an appropriate way to kill a joey. So we've got some pretty appalling practices in Australia when we look at Canada with the seal hunts and other things that happen so then again, we come back to this is legal trade. Kangaroo skins, pet meat, etc. So these guys can go out, shoot kangaroos, and they go and exterminate whole areas because it's not beneficial to go and shoot one or two roos here and one or two roos there. So we've got areas around Australia where there are no kangaroos, they've been wiped out. So that's a whole other campaign. It's not my campaign. But it's, we all just expect that there are 1000s and 1000s of roos, but they- we have roos that are facing extinction as well. So back to rewilding. Yeah, but to rewilding. But I'm just sort of thinking that somewhere there's a balance between what people would consider having to manage numbers. And I'm trying to be pragmatic here, right? So you know, you're managing numbers because of whatever reasons, whether it's crop control, whether it's the camels in the desert, or whatever, whatever it is that you know, you feel that you need to do the culling as part of the policy. But then there's that flipside, again, you know, we really talking about so many different lenses of seeing or, or even quite a binary way, in fact, you know, that then there is the extinction crisis that if we get it wrong, and we don't do it in a way that is appropriate with the lens of mass extinction, that's when we're getting ourselves into a real pickle.

Unknown: 36:17

And we tend to project human belief systems onto nature. We have a lens that says, oh, there's a big mob of roos. There's too many we need to cull them or there's too many brumbies, or there's too many or that's going to impact my crops, or that's going to- it's just, we again, project our bias onto nature, rather than being informed by her. When you can switch that lens, and really tap into the intelligence of nature. And really, listen, we wouldn't have a crisis, because we would be able to work in balance. Something that I learned in Africa, which was extraordinary is that and say, this is at the White Lion Trust is that they do a veggie garden for the humans, and they do a veggie garden for the baboons. And you share, you share with nature, so it's similar, you know, we kind of- farmers look at profit and loss statements. And if a few of their lambs are taken by dingoes, then or wild dogs are whatever it might be, or eagles, like we had the farmer who poisoned all those Eagles because he was losing his lambs. But we have to kind of find a balance where there's, you have to kind of put into your balance sheet that okay, well, 5% of my crop is going to be lost to this or 10% is going to be lost to that. We can't just all be about making a profit without understanding the impact we have on the environment. And the thing that we're not understanding is that the piece that's impacting the environment has a detrimental effect to the crops anyway.

Sonia Nolan: 37:59

Exactly. So this year's profit statement is actually, you know, a future generations extinction issue. Exactly. Donalea you recently came back from a trip to South Africa, and I was reading the blog on your website, which I would recommend to everybody to have a read to hear about some of the work that you did over there. And some of the key, I guess, milestones, shall we put it? That you've achieved in in this recent visit. Did you want to share some of that with me?

Unknown: 38:29

Yeah, thanks for that. I was approached by a New South Wales MP who was really keen on understanding wildlife trade. And he'd been given funding to really see what were what was happening in South Africa in regards to captive breeding and intensive farming of wildlife. And this is a country that also had tried to change the category of 33 wild species to agriculture. So animals like rhinos, leopard, lions, etc, we're now going to be considered, you know, farmed animals. That's recently been overturned. So the work that Pippa Hankinson, and Ian McClure have done with blood lions. And you know, our contribution from what we've been doing in Australia is that the South African government is now committed to closing down lion farming.

Sonia Nolan: 39:24

Thats an achievement.

Donalea Patman: 39:25

Yeah, it's huge and all kudos to Pippa Hankinson and Ian for their continued work because when they started this work back in similar times to when I was doing the work here in Australia, is that the government didn't even want to talk to them. And now they're become the lead consultants. So there's a parliamentary panel and they are now working with the industry in how to phase out lion farming. But there's one thing so the New South Wales MP and I met with the South African Government as well as opposition government. And we also met with the hunting groups. So we were supposed to meet with just one gentleman from the Professional Hunters and Shooters Association. Lion farmers. And when we got there, there was several hunting groups. So they turned up on mass. So we were-

Sonia Nolan: 40:18

How intimidating.

Donalea Patman: 40:19

Well, it was, but also I had to pretend I wasn't who I was. Because if they'd known it was me, you know, they- it's yeah, it's one of those things you have to be conscious about. And so in this meeting, what was evident is that, you know, they're now breeding lions with tigers, because the lion bone trade is incredibly lucrative. And breeding them with tigers, you get a denser bone and the bones are heavier, and you get paid per kilo for bones. So these are-

Sonia Nolan: 40:53

And what do they do with the bones? How horrific.

Donalea Patman: 40:54

So it just keeps on and on and on. So until They get shipped to Asia. Again, it's kind of a pseudo medicinal piece, or they're made into jewellery. It's, you know, markets are created depending on if one market saying tiger bone is closed down, then another market there's a moratorium on trade. And I think one of the things we is invigorated with something else. So it really is the trade and this is where I think conservation isn't really able to tackle some of the issues because they're not- they don't have a commercial brain. And why we were looking at the Trade in Endangered Species is because conservation, they've been almost...you know, they've been kind of doing their piece on the ground, which is really important. But they can't- they don't have the capacity to be dealing with, like, you know, have to be aware of is all of the zoonotic diseases that we've the legal trade system or free trade agreements, for example. So yeah, so it's great that they're closing down lion farming, but there's this whole new industry with this interbreeding of lions and tigers. had to deal with, as well. You know, we're finding that SARS, Ebola, Spanish Flu, etc, etc.

Sonia Nolan: 42:15

What can we do to make a difference? Because it

Donalea Patman: 42:15

It could be. You know, there's controversy about

Sonia Nolan: 42:15

Covid. whether it came out of a lab in China or whether it actually came from a bat. And this is the piece, if you have legal trade, and you have species existing with each other that shouldn't. So if you have a pangolin, from Africa, and a bat from South America, and a bird from Europe, and something from Australia, all sounds, it all sounds big. And sometimes people can become all in cages, and all of that, you know, they're kind of existing together, all of those diseases, they're not supposed to be together, they're supposed to be apart. So it's easy for things to transfer, and then they transfer to humans so, and wet markets, etc. But it doesn't matter where you are in the world, there's this issue. So why are we continuing to Trade in Endangered Species? You have to ask yourself. quite desensitised to the big problems, which is part of the issue. Right? So what can we as individuals do to to help this mass extinction crisis, to to not let it continue?

Unknown: 43:26

I think there's a few things, find a charity that you're passionate about, and support them, whether it's donating to them or volunteering. It's really important. I think, like the lowest on the scale of charitable giving is environmental causes. So please donate if you can. And volunteer is really important. If you've got skills that you can contribute to charitable groups that's really worthwhile as well. Join if you have in your area, local landcare, or local groups that are planting or rewilding areas, help there. Join, you know, become a member of For The Love of Wildlife, and we're always welcoming members. And similarly, like, you know, there's always a range of talent that we need with the work that we're doing. And follow. We were yet to kind of get our social media going with Quenda. But we will get that up and launch soon. And just follow our story. Because we're really, you know, we're very excited about what we're doing. And yes, there's a lot to be done so contribute in any way you can.

Sonia Nolan: 44:45

You mentioned earlier, Donalea, that you're a Freo girl, so born and bred in Freo and Western Australia.

Unknown: 44:50

Well, actually I was born in Sydney, but I came to WA when I was just tiny, two or three years of age and at that time dad was in the Navy and then he became involved in the commercial fishing industry and worked for Kailis. He designed and built 70 or 80 cray boats and fishing trawlers, prawn trawlers for Kailis. So grew up in Freo, was here for the America's Cup.

Sonia Nolan: 45:15

Oh, what an amazing time, that was, wasn't it?

Unknown: 45:18

It was brilliant. And saw Fremantle transform, and so grew up with, you know, the wonderful community of Fremantle. And I've always considered myself a Freo girl. But I moved to Melbourne in 2008. I went across to do my interior design degree, and then I just somehow didn't find my way back. But I now understand I would never have been able to do the political work if I'd been in WA. But now that I feel like I've kind of completed that round, I'm now in WA to do this project, which you know, really will make a massive difference to Australian wildlife.

Sonia Nolan: 45:57

Were you always a lover of animals? And did you always have that conservation environmental streak in you even as a child, Donalea.

Unknown: 46:06

To my fathers dismay. This is a piece that you won't quite believe is my dad used to love shooting roos. So he used to take me out shooting to toughen me up and mortified by what my father did, and to his dying days is that we kind of always- he was mortified that I would give up my corporate life to run a charity. Like in his eyes, and especially to get a ban on lion trophies. It was almost like, you know, how could I do that? So not that dad ever did trophy hunting. But he used to live down south and used to be employed by local wineries to shoot Roos and to my horror, but so you know, I grew up with a dad like that. And yeah, I had an intrinsic connection to nature. And I always, I always remember, we did our scuba diving tickets together. And he said he's never heard anybody underwater scream because I was telling him to put the crayfish back in the bowl. It was just so yeah, I was always the greeny if you like in the family. But it's just who I was. And yeah, it was Africa, going to Africa. And having that connection with the lions that really flipped everything on its head. And I can understand now you kind of look back and think oh, you know, I can see that I've always loved wildlife and always love nature. But this is like a whole other level. You're listening to My Warm Table podcast. My name is Donalea Patman. And my conversation with Sonia is all about For The Love of Wildlife. And our new project Quenda. A friend of mine came up with this incredible idea is that what we're finding is that we have an extinction, and especially in small mammals and marsupial's. And so because of that we are not getting, we're losing not only our mammals, but we're also losing our grasses and a whole range of things. So we were looking at arid landscapes, and we've got a lot of it in WA to see they've been farmed to death, mined to death, whatever it's been, it's been taken beyond, it's been degraded. And we're going to mimic what those little critters do. So for example, a Quenda, which is a small, small Bandicoot is we're creating a like a mars style rover that basically does the micropitting and the micro digging, turning over the soil so that we can hydrate the soil.

Sonia Nolan: 48:41

So clever.

Donalea Patman: 48:43

And hydrating the soil, the native grasses have a chance to come back and with the native grasses, you then have cover for the wildlife, and the insects and all of the other species. And then when you've re, you know, regenerated all of this land, you can then start doing regenerative farming. So we're working with groups in arid areas, like there's a lot of people doing regen work in areas that are already kind of, you know, tree planting and, you know, creating more thriving ecosystems, which is all you know, really, really important work. But we wanted to look at the really arid stuff in the desert out in the outback that's not being addressed, and where it gets to 52 degrees. Because we have a real issue, not just in Australia, but globally. And we have to do things at scale. So we're hoping we'll have access to 1000s of kilometres of land. And with our mars style rovers, they'll be able to go out and do that autonomously, solar powered and start that micropitting - kickstarting the ecology so that nature can do the rest by herself.

Sonia Nolan: 49:58

It's so clever. So the Quenda project. Fabulous. So it's these, I guess these mars, these little robots pretending to be Quendas. I mean, they don't look like Quendas, but they're pretending to do to be Quendas, doing the work of what a Quenda would do. So again, learning from nature. So why did it work before this land became arid? And it worked because there were these small marsupials or other you know, sort of nature inspired beings that were actually doing the work and making sure the soil was able to regenerate. So you're taking that that beautiful lesson of nature, giving it a modern twist, shall we say, with a Mars inspired rover? And doing that work along the landscape. That is, it's just sensational.

Unknown: 50:47

Well, it wasn't my idea. I have to credit our dear friend Doug Menzie, who unfortunately passed away in April and Rob Downey, who's heading up Quenda ecologics, and For The Love of Wildlife, and Quenda are partnering to bring this project to be. So basically, you know, the problem we've got is we've got a hardened crust. When it does rain, the water just washes the topsoil off, and we're not able to hydrate. So really, all we're doing is micropitting and then allowing the soil to be hydrated. And then once you've got water in the soil, then the rest of it kind of can start that process of returning the ecology.

Sonia Nolan: 51:28

What sort of timeframe are you working this on? Because obviously, that's not going to happen overnight.

Unknown: 51:32

It's long term. Yeah, long term thinking. So with our indigenous partners, we're about to start trials. So we're working with a team at biologic to wrap the science around what we're doing. And then we will, we're working on our prototype, and then we'll be trialling them in various areas around WA.

Sonia Nolan: 51:54

And when are you hoping to start? Because this sounds hot off the press. You heard it first on My Warm Table, I just want to be really clear about that.

Unknown: 52:01

Yes, and we hope to start trials in the next month or two. Very exciting.

Sonia Nolan: 52:07

Before the end of 2023.

Donalea Patman: 52:09

That's right. And then while we've still got rain and our prototype should be ready, hopefully by the end of the year, and then we're going to be looking at really forging forward next year.

Sonia Nolan: 52:21

Oh, that's super exciting, Donalea. That's, you know, again, it's that long term thinking, it's that learning from nature.

Unknown: 52:29

Also making it an earth centred business, we really make the earth the piece, and rather than it being human centric, and which is where we sit naturally. So if we make the earth the centre of what we're doing, and how that benefits her, and For The Love of Wildlife is a global rewilding alliance partner. And their vision is that we have to rewild 50% of the planet if we're firstly going to get to net zero, but also to sequester the carbon that's in the atmosphere. We can't do that without wildlife. It's not just- technology alone can't do it. Tree planting alone can't do it. Wildlife is also part of that animated carbon cycle. And so that's my passion is that we're not just regreening Australia, but we really, all we're doing is returning Australia back to the savanna once was. So 200 years ago, Australia was full of grasslands. And the native grasses sequester carbon so much more quickly than trees. But more than that, it provides the coverage for the small marsupials and the insects and the lizards and all the other creatures. So it's, it's a good starting point.

Sonia Nolan: 53:46

It's a wonderful starting point. Donalea, I've so enjoyed having you around the Warm Table. It's been amazing. I want to finish though, with an American cultural anthropologist, quote from Margaret Mead. And she once said that "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

Donalea Patman: 54:07

I love that quote.

Sonia Nolan: 54:08

I love that quote, I did pinch it from your website. So Donalea, thank you so much for leading the way and helping to change the world.

Unknown: 54:17

Thank you. That's very kind of you. It's again, I just think if you get passionate women and or anybody with a passionate heart who really is committed to doing the right thing, I just, there's so many of us that are on the right side of history, and we just can't allow the decimation to continue it really is important that we stand up for nature.

Sonia Nolan: 54:45

Thanks for joining me, Sonia Nolan around the Warm Table. Let's grow the community. Please follow My Warm Table podcast on socials and like and share this episode with your family and friends. My Warm Table is brought to you by Females Over45 Fitness. Keep listening now for a health tip from FOFF head coach Kelli Reilly.

Kelli Reilly FOFF: 55:07

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