Chris Curnow

Senior Project Manager, Native Vegetation

Chris is the at times laconic leader of WWF’s Southwest Australia private land manager engagement team. A real country boy, he is a quiet achiever who, like people on the land, gets things done. Chris has been involved in bridging the divide between farmers and environmentalists since he graduated from the University of New England in 1990 with a Bachelor of Natural Resources with Honours.

He has never been afraid to get his hands dirty and this approach has worked in Australia and abroad, where he has advised and worked alongside Mayan and other Amerindian communities in Central and South America before returning home in 2003. Originally from the Eastern States, Chris joined the WWF team in Southwest Australia in 2003. Having fallen in love with the uniqueness of the southwest and the WA Wheatbelt on his first visit while on holidays in 1991, in 2003 Chris was already looking to head west for a nice little convalesce after a recent near-death malarial experience, when the WWF manager position come into view. He took the job and hasn’t looked back. Over six years later, Chris still believes that working with farmers and our other vital land managers is the key to preserving WA’s remaining natural jewels of habitat which is home to a huge number of unique species and some of the rarest and most unusual flora and fauna in the world