Our Origins

How did it all begin?

One by one in mid-2011, our founder, Mark Bachmann, tapped a small group of trusted colleagues on the shoulder with the idea of starting a new, regionally-based not-for-profit organisation.

With a range of complementary skills and a passion for practical solutions, the challenge we issued ourselves was this: to design and develop a new environmental non-government organisation model for delivering practical, pragmatic on-ground environmental action, informed by science.

We recognised the need for our new NGO to have a regional focus, and to prioritise working closely and respectfully with the diversity of people in the local communities where we live and work, especially people on the land.

Nature Glenelg Trust is our living experiment that continues to ‘fill the gaps’, and we invite you to join us.

Why Nature Glenelg?

The name of the Trust reflects our regional, cross-border focus, with the magnificent Glenelg River straddling the border between South Australia and Victoria, in the part of south-eastern Australia where NGT began.

Nature Glenelg Trust staff are mostly based in the regional areas situated between Adelaide (SA) and Melbourne (Vic), but now also in NSW and Tasmania.

Our heart and soul – and our desire to make a lasting and practical difference – is grounded in the country and regional areas across south-eastern Australia, where we fill gaps, work across borders and offer novel, practical solutions to environmental challenges.

What is the logo of Nature Glenelg Trust?

The Ancient Greenling (Hemiphlebia mirabilis) damselfly is a small but striking species that represents what Nature Glenelg Trust is all about. This “living fossil” is a sensitive biological indicator that is fond of wetlands, but only occurs at a limited number of sites in south-eastern Australia.

Over recent years the Ancient Greenling has been found to occur at a handful of important wetland sites in regional areas where we work; a list that also includes wetlands that Nature Glenelg Trust have now restored (such as Long Swamp in Victoria and Mt Burr Swamp in South Australia).

This rare species is globally significant as the only living representative of a family of insects (Hemiphlebiidae) that can be traced back 250 million years to fossil records from Brazil to Russia. At 2.5 centimetres in length they might be small, but we think they are a rather impressive little creature; after all, although rare, they have demonstrated remarkable resilience.