Healesville Sanctuary bids farewell to director Ross after years of leadership.
After almost nine years at the helm of Healesville Sanctuary, Director Ross Williamson is preparing to say his goodbyes, leaving behind a legacy of optimism, and unwavering commitment to conservation.
Ross first stepped into the role nearly a decade ago, a move he is glad he made, albeit he admits, not entirely of his own planning.
Embedded in Zoos Victoria’s Threatened Species Team, Ross said, “I hadn’t really thought about coming up here to the sanctuary.”
“I’m glad I did because where else would you want to be,” Ross said.
“It’s a tremendous privilege and an honour to work at the sanctuary.”
Living on the property, Ross noted that his walk through the sanctuary to work each morning was a major highlight of his day.
“It is such a beautiful patch of bush and whether it is cold and foggy or bright sunshine, it is always great to walk through,” Ross said.
“I also really love collaborating with the people I work with. They are really smart and dedicated people, so the conversations I have at work are endlessly interesting. It is so great to work with clever people,” he said.
Upon moving to the area, Ross very quickly came to love the township of Healesville and the surrounding community.
“Healesville’s a lovely town and the Yarra Valley is just exquisite. Whenever my wife and I go and visit family over in Essendon we come back through Diamond Creek and over through Yarra Glen. It’s a magic moment when you get over the Christmas Hills and see down to the valley,” Ross said.
“I also love the community here in Healesville and in Badger Creek. There are some really nice people,” he said.
When it comes to the ins and outs of being a director at the sanctuary, according to Ross, being the custodian of day-to-day operations was not the hardest part of the job.
“The staff here have been running the place for 90 years so they really know how it all works,” Ross said.
“Most of my focus goes towards shaping the future of the sanctuary, and working out where we are trying to go.”
While Ross outlined many of the joys of his job, he noted that the Covid period was one of great difficulty.
Ross said, “Most certainly the biggest challenge in my role at the sanctuary was Covid. That had really knocked us all around.”
“We were closed for over 300 days over that period, so financially, it was a huge challenge,” he said.
“It was hard because some staff had to keep working on the property and some staff couldn’t come in at all, so that really broke down the cohesiveness and on top of that all were the challenges of just living life in lockdown.”
While the sanctuary and its staff received government support during lockdowns, much of their emergency and project funding was eaten away during the Covid period.
Ross said, “We had some money stashed away to do things and all of that disappeared.”
“Bouncing out of Covid has been an interesting process as well,” he said.
“We were doing really, really well before Covid and we had had 470,000 visitors in the year before Covie and we were heading for half a million before we closed down the first time.”
Since Covid, the sanctuary has been struggling to get back to their almost half a million target.
Ross said, “We are bouncing around the 400,000 mark. It’s been slow for people to come back to the sanctuary and I think that’s probably a bit of an issue across the Yarra Valley.”
“There’s quite a few businesses that have found it a bit of a challenge,” he said.
Originally studying as a botanist, Ross has had a vast and varied career, with conservation always at its centre.
From working as a biologist for national parks, to heading up Victoria’s post-fire recovery program after Black Saturday among other work experience, Ross is ready to relax in the coastal town of Foster for a little while.
“I turn 65 next birthday and I think directors have a use by date,” Ross said.
“Although I would love to hang around for another five years, I think it is time for some fresh thinking, and I suppose, it is time for me to just move on.”
Despite being ready to relax in Foster, Ross insists that he will be back to visit, – even though he firmly believes that “old directors shouldn’t hang around”.
“I will have a perpetual interest in the success of the sanctuary so I will certainly come back and haunt my lovely colleagues here,” Ross said.
“But I will give them a bit of space first and let the new people settle in,” he added.
Referring to conservation as “tremendously rewarding…and a driving force” behind his career, Ross asserted that in terms of conservation, “there is so much to do.”
The Healesville Sanctuary works closely with Zoos Victoria in their Fighting Extinction Program.
Ross said, “We have got 13 species from the Fighting Extinction Program here at the sanctuary that we are working incredibly hard to stop going extinct.”
“It has been tremendously successful, particularly in the last couple of years. We’ve seen some real wins in places where we had struggled to get some progress, so I would love to see that program go from strength to strength,” Ross said.
Despite the strength of the Fighting Extinction Program, Ross maintained that serious growth in conservation support is urgently needed.
“It would be great if there was more support for conservation in general. Not just for us at the sanctuary, but for our partners as well,” Ross said.
“There are some wonderful people working so hard like the Friends of the Helmeted Honeyeater, our colleagues at Parks Victoria, and lots of community groups that are working so hard to preserve Victoria’s wildlife,” he said.
“The more support we can give them, the better off everybody is going to be. Victoria’s wildlife is so precious. It’s something that, if we start losing bits of it, and we have lost chunks over the years, if we lose more in the future, then that’s going to be tragic.”
Ross’ sanctuary service will draw to a close in early December and his colleagues and the community of Healesville Sanctuary are sad to see him go.
While he is ready to relax by the seaside in Foster, Ross confirmed that the sanctuary will always have a place in his heart.
“I will certainly be supporting the sanctuary wherever I can,” Ross said.
“It’s been a wonderful privilege. I really landed in the right place when I came here.”
