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Dr Bob Brown is an Australian environmentalist, former senator, medical doctor and founder of Bush Heritage Australia. He's best known as the former leader of the Australian Greens political party and was a key figure in the campaign to stop the damming of Tasmania's Franklin River.

Dr Bob Brown took the huge leap of faith that brought Bush Heritage Australia into being in 1990.

Two blocks of forest adjacent to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area were put up for sale, advertised as ‘ideal for woodchipping’.

“I was walking high above two beautiful bush blocks that had come up for sale and that logging companies were keen to buy. I thought about what might happen if someone didn’t protect that land.”

– Bob Brown,
Bob Brown (circa 2011)
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Bob Brown at Oura Oura in 2011. Photo Peter Morris.

Bob had been awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for his role campaigning to protect the Franklin River. He used the $49,000 awarded with this prize as a down payment on the land, borrowing the rest from friends and the bank.

The campaign to pay off the remaining $200,000 loan was the birth of The Australian Bush Heritage Fund and that land is now our Liffey River and Drys Bluff Reserves, parts of which are United Nations World Heritage Listed!

This was indeed a courageous move. No organisation existed that was dedicated to conserving and managing private land. There was no guarantee the funds could be recouped.

A place in history

Bush Heritage is one of Bob’s many babies, now grown into a life of its own. His sheer audacity of thought and action brought this organisation into being.

Bob has been an important player in the history of the Australian conservation movement. Over the years his home in the Liffey Valley – Oura Oura – hosted formative meetings of Bush Heritage Australia, The Wilderness Society, the Tasmanian and Australian Greens, and the Franklin River Campaign.

In 2011, then Senator Bob Brown formally presented his 14-hectare Tasmanian property 'Oura Oura' to Bush Heritage as a gift. Both the Liffey River and Oura Oura reserves are now open for self-guided visitors to explore.

Bob Brown.
click to watch video
Oura Oura
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Bob Brown. Photo Katelyn Reynolds.

Bob talked about the Nature Conservancy in the USA and predicted that such a large, national organisation dedicated to securing high-conservation value private land could work in Australia. People wanted to donate where they could see a result in real terms, he declared.

And so it began. Bob’s scribbled IOUs and grand ideas were converted into the Australian Bush Heritage Fund. Those involved on the Board and as staff members in the early years soon discovered he would be a hard taskmaster, forever pushing towards the dream.

Once they knew they could pay off the debt, Bob urged expansion to employ staff, to make a new purchase, then another. The rest is our history.

Bob was President of our Board until 1996. He continues to be very active in his environmental work through the Bob Brown Foundation. He is the author of several books and star of the 2023 documentary movie The Giants, which explores the intertwined fates of trees and humans. 

In 2025 he joined host Tiahni Adamson for this episode of our podcast Big Sky Country, focused on Trees and Climate.

Podcast: Trees & Climate
Tiahni Adamson chats with Dr Bob Brown at Oura Oura.
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Tiahni Adamson chats with Dr Bob Brown at Oura Oura. Photo Bee Stephens.

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