ABOUT ROGER CURRIE

My wife Dierdre and I first met at the Torquay Hotel in 1977 when I was playing fullback for the Hervey Bay Sea Hawks aussie rules club. We have two children and four grand children. After completing five years military service as a soldier musician, I moved to the bay to see why my parents had moved there from Melbourne. I was just one of the young ‘Mexicans’ who thought Hervey Bay was ready for an alternative form of ‘punting the pigskin’, and it’s great to see that the game is still strong in the Bay.

I was employed as a cupola furnace man at Walkers Engineering Works from 1975 to 1979. I worked at the Hervey Bay High School for 6 years as a cleaner. Then did the usual construction jobs like builders and brickies’ laboring, gyprock fixing, then a couple of years with Queensland Rail as a crane and forklift operator. And from 1988 to 1995 I worked with Ergon Energy as an electrical storeman at the depot in Maryborough.

Deirdre and I then bought a sixteen hectare bush block at Talegalla near Bauple and I spent the next three years doing casual work and community work at Bauple, as well as building our three storey solar panel/polehouse and becoming interested in the habitat and wildlife where we lived. We had the place assessed for Land For Wildlife in 1999 and this was the turning point for my current focus. I became so motivated by the landscape I was living in that I applied for adult entry to the University of Queensland in 2000 and was given an external study place in the Bachelor of Applied Science programme, focussing on Protected Area Management and GIS (Geographical Information Systems).

I graduated in 2004, using the Fraser Coast Region as my framework for case studies and assignments. I was employed as the Regional Environment Coordinator for Wide Bay Burnett Conservation Council from 2003 to 2006. I have also been running my own Biodiversity Consultancy, REMC (Regional Ecosystems Mapping Consultancy), preparing property vegetation mapping reports and conservation planning reports in the region for both local government and private clients.

I have been the public face of conservation issues in the region as part of my media spokesperson role as regional environment coordinator and Water Policy Officer. I have been an anti traveston dam advocate since one of our ‘moles ‘ informed us that it was being planned . I may be the only public servant in Queensland who has been  unlawfully dismissed for making comments to the media concerning the dam , and gained a public apology from the Queensland government for the trouble .