For over 30 years, John Wamsley has been striving to save Australia鈥檚 indigenous wildlife. But his methods, which involve fencing off large areas of land and eradicating all alien species such as foxes and rabbits, have made him extremely unpopular. He has received several death threats and spent time in prison. Not that it鈥檚 put him off. He has already set aside tens of thousands of hectares-funded through his publicly listed company-and wants to increase that to one per cent of Australia by 2025. He tells Melanie Cooper why his system is the only hope for endangered species.
Your views on conservation are fairly radical. When did you develop them?
When I was seven my father bought 166 acres in the Central Coast of New South Wales, in the middle of millions of acres of virgin bush. It was incredible country that doesn鈥檛 exist in Australia any more, and it had all these native animals. We went to live there when I was 10. When I was 12, the foxes and cats appeared. And by the time I was 14, there were no native animals left at all.
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And when did you first do something about it?
In the 1970s, in my thirties, I set up Warrawong Earth Sanctuary in South Australia to demonstrate the problem facing Australian wildlife. Even though Australia was losing wildlife faster than the rest of the world combined, people were blaming farmers, miners, foresters-everyone but the moggie in their lounge. And it was the moggie in their lounge that was the problem. By the early 1980s, we had demonstrated that any native wildlife would thrive in an area without foxes and cats.
Why South Australia?
It was the only state where it was still legal for me to fence off an area and put back locally extinct animals. They just hadn鈥檛 got around to making it illegal. They attempted to do that as soon as they realised what I was doing. In 1976, they put me in jail for cutting down some pine trees to allow me to build the feral-proof fence. To get out of jail, I had to sign an agreement that I wouldn鈥檛 build the fence, so it was pretty tough stuff.
How did you get around that?
I signed the agreement and just kept building it. I signed under duress, so I didn鈥檛 feel bound by it. Warrawong was completed in February 1983 and opened to the public on 1 January 1985. And within a year, it was overrun with native animals. The population just exploded. Anybody that came here could see that something incredible was happening. So we founded another sanctuary, just down from the Barossa Valley.
How did you fund them?
We raised the money by selling shares. Each sanctuary was a company that you could invest in. And that worked extremely well. It looked like the investing public would make it work. We鈥檝e now got 7000 shareholders.
How much land do you need in order to do what you want to do?
So far we鈥檝e got 10 blocks of land, three of which are open to the public. To save Australian wildlife we have to build 80 sanctuaries of an average of 1000 square kilometres each across Australia. Somebody has to. I don鈥檛 mind if we do it or if someone else does it. Someone in Western Australia is doing it too, so it鈥檚 catching on. There is no other way to save Australian wildlife. You can鈥檛 save a species in a zoo. I mean, why would you want to?
Have you saved any species?
Oh yeah. When I started, there were 100 woylie-a small nocturnal marsupial-left. Now, after we demonstrated the problem and its solution, there are 20,000. There were 100 numbats when I started and now there are 2000. And we鈥檝e probably saved the southern brown bandicoot too. So we鈥檝e saved a few species from extinction but we鈥檝e got a long way to go yet.
How many species of Australian mammal are endangered?
There are about 25, but it depends who you talk to. Because government departments are government departments, the easiest way they can save endangered animals is to reclassify them as not being endangered. There鈥檚 no standard definition of the word 鈥渆ndangered鈥�. I鈥檝e fought very hard to establish that the numbers are the important thing, because it鈥檚 harder to fiddle numbers. They鈥檝e moved the numbat off the endangered list even though there are only 2000 of them. Nowhere else in the world would they move a species with only 2000 left off the endangered list.
What is so important to you about native species that justifies killing any number of alien ones?
I don鈥檛 think there is a logical answer to this. I believe that evolution gave us a paradise and that we will lose everything unless we understand about the need for balance. I believe biodiversity is good and worth maintaining. But really, it is just a belief.
What do you think of the way other conservationists work?
I can give you a good example. The mala is a hare wallaby. Twenty years ago people realised it was in trouble so they formed the mala recovery group. Since then they have had A$10 million in funding, published hundreds of research papers and travelled Australia talking about the problem. They probably got thousands of people involved. The only thing that went wrong was that they lost the mala. Other than that, it was a perfect programme. The people involved still say it was a good programme and that it was successful. This is where I totally disagree with them. I would say the success of the mala programme is measured by how many mala are out there, not how many research papers you published or how much funding you got-and the mala is still listed as vulnerable. Unfortunately today we measure success in science not by results but by how much funding you get.
What is your view on the National Parks and Wildlife Service run by each state?
The National Parks system has failed to conserve wildlife. That鈥檚 pretty obvious from the fact that up until very recently, there wasn鈥檛 one success story. All the conservation successes we鈥檝e had with mammals in Australia really started from what happened at Warrawong. In 1990, a representative of the National Parks called and spoke to my wife Proo and I, and he said he was talking on behalf of all the National Parks of Australia. He said there was no way in the world they would ever allow us to reintroduce any native animals in our sanctuaries and that we may as well pack it in now. So the opposition was massive from the National Parks for what we were doing.
Surely you鈥檙e all on the same side.
I think that鈥檚 a dangerous statement. That鈥檚 like saying that all politicians are on the same side and therefore they should all agree with each other. I mean, the goal is to save wildlife. But I think others believed very strongly that they were saving wildlife by stopping me from doing what I was doing. I don鈥檛 think there鈥檚 any doubt about that.
You have a lot of enemies. How do you deal with that?
I鈥檒l give you an example. In 1990 it was illegal for us to interfere with feral cats, even though they were destroying wildlife. We weren鈥檛 even allowed to throw a rock at them. A group of animal liberationists turned up and said they were going to watch us and report us if we did anything untoward to feral cats. So I decided to take them on. At the 1991 South Australia Tourism Awards, where we won a prize, I wore a feral-cat hat. It made the front page of every newspaper. I got hundreds of death threats. I had people throwing cats over the fence here and all sorts of things.
Many people would say you brought that on yourself . . .
Maybe, but we helped to change the law that protected feral cats. We can now shoot any cat in our sanctuaries, even if it鈥檚 got a collar. We made people realise that cats were a problem in Australia. And now you hear people say they are 鈥渞esponsible鈥� cat owners, which you never heard 10 years ago.
Is anyone on your side?
Well, we鈥檝e got 7000 shareholders, so at least that many are. I think a lot of people are. A lot of people oppose us until they find out what we do. I think the concept of commercialising the environment doesn鈥檛 sit easy with a lot of people. It doesn鈥檛 sit easy with me, in a way.
Do your sanctuaries help local businesses?
I don鈥檛 know because I tend to be a loner. A lot of people do networking and things. I鈥檝e never done that. I suppose I have an inherent dislike of people. I can鈥檛 handle a crowd. I鈥檓 a natural recluse and I don鈥檛 communicate. People are all right individually, but en masse they鈥檙e pretty strange.
How did you prepare for your career in conservation?
I left home at 16 to earn money to build Warrawong. It would be wrong to say this is what I had in mind at the time, but I realised that if I was going to do anything, I would need money. I used to work continuously. It鈥檚 hard work to make money. By the time I was 23, I鈥檇 made a million dollars. And then I realised that if I spent all that money on Warrawong, I wouldn鈥檛 have any left to run it. By the time I was about 25, I looked around for the easiest job in the world that paid the most amount of money, and decided to be an academic. So at 25, I went to university and by the time I was 29, I had a PhD in mathematics.
That was quick!
Well, pure mathematics is very easy.
That鈥檚 not how I remember it. Have you used your mathematics in conservation?
Oh yeah. I can do mathematics because I鈥檓 an extremely logical person. That鈥檚 how I save wildlife-with logic. I basically say, 鈥淭his is the outcome I want. Now how do I get that outcome?鈥� Whereas most people spend their whole life doing a process without any idea what the outcome will be.
You鈥檝e been quoted as saying you would burn in hell to save a species. Isn鈥檛 that a bit extreme?
If I could save a species and it meant that I鈥檇 burn in hell forever, then I鈥檇 burn in hell. I鈥檝e got hundreds of letters from people telling me I鈥檝e already sold my soul to the devil. But of course, I don鈥檛 believe there is a devil. I believe in biodiversity-and evolution, I suppose, is my God.
Death threats haven鈥檛 stopped you. Will anything stop you?
Old age, I suppose. When they bury me. But I鈥檒l always do what鈥檚 best for wildlife.