With 2018 well into Autumn we await with bated breath the announcement of the Noosa Biosphere Reserve Foundation’s 2017 grants. Or more precisely, the three major grants – six ‘small’ ones (totalling about $100,000) have been announced.
Through the grapevine, we’ve heard that Country Noosa has scored a big one (Perhaps $80,000), so its Treasurer, NBRF Chair Dick Barnes, will be happy.
We’ve also heard about a few knock-backs, including the Biosphere’s ‘community arm’, the Noosa Community Biosphere Association, which led to the resignation of its President, Annie Guthrie.
Anyway, as we don’t yet know who was successful in 2017, let’s review the results of the first NBRF grant round in 2016.
Who got money for their projects in the first round?
The best info we found was a quarterly report to Council on 24 November 2016. The report gives figures but consistently fails to name the proponents. But we managed to tease out data from the report and came up with this table:
| Bring back the fish | $441,304 | Noosa Parks Association (NPA) |
| Keep it in Kin Kin | $74,212 | Noosa District and Landcare |
| Map Koala Health | $59,472 | USC University of the Sunshine Coast |
| Understand the Biosphere | $20,000 | NCBA Noosa Community Biosphere Association |
| Botanical Field Guides | $13,580 | NICA Noosa Integrated Catchment Association |
As you can see, the huge NPA project received more than twice the amount of all other successful applicants combined, not even taking into account the many poor souls who put time and effort into a grant application in good faith and received nothing.
We believe the following context for the NBRF granting this extraordinary amount to one organisation, the NPA, is of interest:
- NPA honorary lifetime member and then mayor Noel Playford was one of the NBRF directors while the board decided for the NPA to receive this staggering amount.
- NBRF director (and continuing member) Noel Playford bullied the then Executive Officer coinciding with her raising conflict of interest issues with the board.
- NPA president Michael Gloster was soon after appointed to the NBRF board as a Director.
Is NBRF doing the right thing by Noosa?
It is often claimed that NBRF provides a great ‘return on investment’ for the community, but we would question this. A large proportion of project funding is paid to project partners outside the Noosa Biosphere Reserve and any skills developed along the way are not retained inside the Biosphere.
One of the tenets of the UNESCO Biosphere concept is that it should contribute in a meaningful way to the local economy and support local sustainable development.
In the Noosa Shire there are more than 400 not for profit organisations with this one, NBRF, handsomely funded by Noosa Council, virtually a closed shop operating under a restrictive and undemocratic Constitution which makes it virtually self-accountable and not answerable to the community.
Furthermore, neither Noosa Council nor NBRF have an explicit strategy against which the community can measure the NBRF’s performance (it is estimated to have received as much as $3 million of ratepayers’ funds in its first three years).
The ethics and effectiveness of the organisation are constantly in question and its internal operations, appointment of directors and decision-making are secretive.
In our view, NBRF has breached an implicit social contract with the community that should at minimum emphasise ethical behaviour, trust, transparency and performance.
In this context, we reiterate and endorse earlier proposals put to the current Mayor and the then NBRF chair by Keith Jackson AM, which stated that:
The NBRF board should, without delay:
- Commission an independent external review of its performance effectiveness, Constitution, policies and processes, including the appointment of directors, the results of which will be made public.
- Initiate action to reconcile hurt and grievances caused by past conflict and misbehaviour.
- Obtain an independent legal opinion on possible conflicts of interest on the board, actual or perceived.
- Commit publicly to a new era of transparency and disclosure to the Noosa community, including opening up membership in NBRF and conducting its affairs democratically.
If NBRF cannot establish an effective organisation which is understood, accepted and admired as an important community asset, and which is able to unify people and environment in the interests of building a better Shire, then it would seem to have no valid reason to exist.
