By KATH GANNAWAY
DON Valley conservationist, Jean Thomas, is among winners of the 2015 Telstra Business Women Awards.
Some 13 years ago Jean left her comfortable lifestyle in the Yarra Valley and embarked on the challenge of a lifetime to protect an unknown tree kangaroo in Papua New Guinea.
On 20 October, at Crown Casino in Melbourne, she received the Purpose and Social Enterprise Award for her work with the Tenkile Conservation Alliance (TCA), a non-government organisation that has worked in Papua New Guinea since 2001.
Under the direction of Jean and husband Jim Thomas as Australian directors, the TCA has implemented projects aimed at ensuring the preservation of the Tenkile Tree Kangaroo, including research, conservation, water and sanitation projects and sustainable livelihood projects.
Fifty villages and around 12,000 people have benefited from the projects.
They arrived in the Torricelli Mountain Ranges, Jim as project manager and Jean as education officer, at a time when the Tenkile numbers were down to 100 and a hunting moratorium in tatters.
Jean said when a massive increase in tourism to the area, in expectation of the moratorium, didn’t eventuate, the hunting resumed.
Their approach was to drop all those expectations and offer choice – “If you keep hunting, you won’t have the Tenkile.”
“We didn’t want to make it wrong after thousands of years of tradition, but the reality was that in five years there would be none left.”
Using her background in education, she created and implemented multiple education programs, all delivered in the local ‘tok pisin’ (Pidgin English) language.
This empowered local village elders and led to the mobilisation of important changes, including the construction of toilets in each village.
Installation of 350 water tanks saw women and girls as the major benefactors.
Before the tanks they spent hours each day walking long distances and carting water back to the villages.
Jean said these two actions, as part of an integrated approach, have had a major impact on the health of the local people.
Ultimately, the Tenkile and four other species endemic to the Torricelli Mountain Ranges have also reaped the benefits.
While Jean’s single motto has been ‘never give up’, she paid credit to the local people.
“I have learnt much from the local people, their culture and customs, a new language and in the process gained extraordinary insights that have allowed our various projects to grow and develop,” she said.
Jean said while she did not consider herself as a businesswoman, the award was an acknowledgement of women who worked in the not for profit sector.
“I do not have an MBA, legal, financial or marketing team to help me do this work. I’ve had to learn everything myself and simply use my commonsense,” she said in her acceptance speech.
She told the Mail she believed the awards were valuable recognition for women.
“There is still an attitude that as a woman you can’t handle that kind of pressure, or maybe you’re not psychologically fit enough to do that sort of thing,” she said.
“I have shown women can be brave and bold and put yourself at risk to do that sort of work.”
Jean also paid tribute to the strong women mentors in her life, starting with her grandmother, Joyce Groat, who died just recently.
“She was probably the first person who helped build my conservation values by the way she lived her life,” she said.
She said TCA board member Patricia Caswell had been a great support and mentor, along with her mother, businesswoman, Susan McDermott and stepmother, former Mountain Views Mail and Upper Yarra Mail editor, Veronica Groat.
Jean is now eagerly awaiting the release of a documentary about the Tenkile project.
Featuring one of her heroes, Sir David Attenborough, ‘Into the Jungle’ (www.intothejungle.org) is set for worldwide release next year.
