Ian Rayner, Program Specialist

Ian considers himself lucky to have grown up on New South Wales North Coast, where he lived in a small village in the hills, close to nature.

“I spent my teenage years playing out in the bush and doing lots of mountain bike riding in the North Coast’s rainforest gullies and the big mountains around there,” Ian says.

Ian’s love for the outdoors drove him to study an honours degree at the Australian National University working on our direct seeding projects around the NSW Southern Tablelands. On graduating he went straight into a full-time position with Greening Australia and today works as a Program Specialist for our Great Southern Landscapes program.

“My role is quite broad, which I love. I could be with our corporate volunteers giving them a chance to get their hands dirty doing planting or weeding one day, join our bush crew to assist with large-scale restoration work the next, and then be out doing direct seeding work on paddocks and in national parks.”

The accomplishment Ian is most proud of is his hub’s disaster relief efforts in the years after Canberra’s tragic bushfires in 2003.

“Many people wanted to help after the fires, so we worked with the community and ACT Government to help heal the landscape around Canberra. Over a ten-year period, an incredible 15,000 volunteers have helped plant over 300,000 seedlings across hundreds of hectares of the ACT. Now fifteen years after the fires many of these areas are thriving again. That is a significant achievement for our community and for Greening Australia.”

Ian’s favorite part of his work is to celebrate a job well done by his team, volunteers and partners.