What would John Paul make of the National Park City movement?

Trust for Nature has been hosting the John Paul Memorial Lectures (The John Paul Memorial Lecture series is made possible thanks to the generosity of The Paul Family Foundation) and have had some exceptional speakers that aim to expand our thinking of our relationship with the land. John believed in exploring everything.

I was luck to have been able to spend time with John and experienced his passion and where it came from. He wasn't a conservation at heart, in fact his background, business dealings and knowledge would be furtherest from what you would expect. However, his teenage experience walking and exploring the Victorian Alps and the friends he did this with - shaped an individual who was driven to think differently and see what could be possible.

We saw this with his and his families exceptional work on restoring the famous Docker Plains pastoral holdings in the North East of Victoria. It was his large scale integrated farming landscape restoration, that has probably become a hallmark of what our future agricultural land management should be. He didn't know if it would work and even why but he was a visionary that gave the experts confidence to try different approaches - and successfully.

I worked closely with John thru that period but now seven years on from his passing, what would he make of the National Park City movement. I think, he would have seen Sydney (a place he also called home) as a potential candidate. He would have embraced such a concept as it had all the hallmarks of the John Paul way:

• a big idea
• the possibility to build bridges between the land and people
• passionated individuals
• to dramatically make our lives better, and
• knowledge not being a barrier

I do wish I could walk the Ovens with John and reflect on the National Park City movement and how it could change rural Australia - John would have seen all the possibilities and more.

Maybe the next Trust for Nature John Paul Memorial Lecture could be about a community movement and have a similar individual Daniel Raven-Ellison as the speaker on the National Park City movement.

(Author Neil McCarthy - was the CEO of North East Catchment Management Authority (2011 - 2018) and CEO of World Urban Parks (2018 - 2021) and a member of the National Parks City International Committee)