Founding member of the Caldera Environment Centre, and coordinator 1989-2012
HopE moved to the Tweed in 1973 after visiting the Aquarius Festival in Nimbin
He was an architect and town planner, and lectured at universities in Sydney and Brisbane prior to retiring to his rural property in the Tyalgum district.
He designed and built his own house and revegetated the land on which he lived.
In his time as coordinator of the CEC, HopE engaged in many projects. There were several major victories against unsustainable and questionable developments in the Tweed during the 1990s. The first and most major victory was saving the plateau of Mt Nullum from development into a sanatorium, the area is now a nature reserve (picture).
As time went on, laws changed and stopping unsustainable development became much more difficult and costly. HopE shifted the focus of the CEC onto promoting the Border Ranges Biosphere Reserve. This is a UNESCO initiative that aims to create a sense of place between people and their natural and cultural environments and provides international status to a region. The Biosphere project is ongoing and is currently in an application stage
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