Rosie Willacy is an extraordinary person who has already lived a full life at the tender age of 34. Rosie is highly educated in wildlife conservation and invasive species management. This career has taken her to New Zealand, Christmas Island and Lord Howe Island as well as places throughout Australia.

This is Rosie Willacy's story....

I was born on Bundjalung Widjabul country out toward Nimbin in Georgica. My mum had homebirths with me and my brothers so that was pretty special.

I have a strong sense of belonging for that place out there near Tower Mountain. We had 8 acres but it was pretty wild. We were on the side of a mountain so lots of scrub and really steep.

Mum and Dad started by building a shack from recycled and reclaimed local timbers. They were young, surfy, hippy types. They paid $8,000 for the land back then. We were off-grid and building the whole time I was growing up so I grew up with a hammer in my hand.

Mum’s family has been around this area for 5 generations on both parent’s sides. Sugar cane farmers. It’s pretty ironic because some of our photo albums have pictures of the logging of the Big Scrub and that was my family.

Dad’s family came out as ten-pound Poms when he was 4 and ran a banana farm. That’s why he loves bananas so much (laughs) I think.

As our family grew, so did the house.

It started as an 8x4 metre shack and as us kids came along so did another extension so it ended up a big house. Dad kind of learnt how to build on the job and he did a fine job.

It was a pretty cool way to grow up, out in the bush, super wild, lot’s of freedom to roam around the mountain and all over Jiggi and Georgica. We would often wander with just our dog and felt comfortable alone in the bush from a really young age.

I went to Jiggi Primary School and my brothers and I all went to Richmond River High in Lismore. Mum and Dad went through Uni and eventually got jobs in town so when I was 16 our family moved to Lismore to save time commuting. That was a shock to the system coming from the bush into town.

Dad’s been in bands ever since I can remember. We always had people at our house jamming but he went through uni and became a music teacher.

He travelled a bit then got a full-time job at Ballina High and he’s still there teaching music. Building and carpentry have always been his hobby.

Mum started out as a Nurse and after having us kids she went back to Uni and studied Naturopathy. She had Traditional Medicinals in town with Trish for a long time and I kind of grew up in that shop as well. They eventually sold the shop and Mum started practising from home. More recently she has been getting into aged care and disability care as well. She’s always been a very caring person.

After I left school I took off as soon as I possibly could.

Just after New Year, I bailed up north with a giant suitcase and about 200 bucks in my pocket looking for adventure. A lot of my friends went off to uni and I had no plan.

I ended up in the Whitsunday Islands working in hospitality. I spent a few years after that floating around, not really having any idea of what I wanted to do. I travelled to NZ and in Australia tree planting and labouring. I spent a year in Sydney doing a Design degree, but it wasn’t a good fit for me. I travelled overseas to South East Asia and I went to Europe.

I guess when I was 22 it wasn’t feeling that satisfying anymore. I was looking for a purpose. I wanted something challenging that used my brain as well as my body and allowed me to spend as much time as possible outside so that’s how I got into Environmental Science. I came back home and did an Undergrad in Environmental Science and Resource Management and within that course, I pretty quickly went in the direction of wildlife conservation.

At the end of that degree, I had to do a 2-month placement with an organisation. I had friends in NZ and was keen to do more travelling so I did my placement in NZ with the Department of Conservation which is where I really got my first real taste of wildlife conservation and invasive species management, which is what I’m doing now.

I’ve done a lot of work in protected areas like National Parks - there are a lot of threats that occur there. We have this idea that we can lock up an area, slap some protection on it and it will be good, but there’s all these threats like climate change, fire, feral animals and disease that don’t respect the boundaries we put in place. There’s a lot of biodiversities still declining in protected areas. And we have a responsibility to manage the biodiversity within those areas.

After NZ, I added an Honours to my degree and worked with frogs with Dr Dave Newell.

We worked in all the mountain ranges west of Kyogle and studied climate change impacts to high elevation frogs. That was my start into research.

Beyond that I did lots of volunteering in the Kimberley in WA, some work with Dr Ross Goldingay with Yellow-bellied Gliders and I did some mapping work for the Githabul working on country rangers in Kyogle.

After that, I made the decision to go back to NZ to try and get a job with the Department of Conservation. Within a few days of arrival, I was on a helicopter getting flown into the backcountry to help out with Rock Wren monitoring. It’s a tiny little bird that lives in high elevation habitats.

I kind of landed on my feet there as a Research Technician in a Government Conservation agency. Dream job.

I did that for a couple of years. I learnt so much, mostly about myself. We would be dropped off on the top of a mountain on our own and be out there for days at a time. It was quite intense but really good as well. I had so much fear around that but by the end I loved it. On the first solo trip I did the weather changed so all the rivers flooded and the chopper couldn’t come back in. I was just hanging out in my tent for days in torrential rain. It didn’t put me off though.

After 2 years running around my body was starting to suffer. It was such hard work and I wasn’t that stimulated because I wasn’t really using my brain. At first, it was satisfying because I was learning how to read maps, navigate and be on my own but after that, it was like.. What’s next?

At that time there was an advertised position for a PhD on Christmas Island working with Dr Sarah Legge who I had come across when I went to the Kimberley.

She was the manager for Conservation and Science for the Australian Wildlife Conservancy. She’s actually local as well. She’s moved to Koonyum Range with her partner who’s from Dorroughby.

They are just total legends and I was so excited to have the opportunity to be mentored by her. I applied and because all the work I’d been doing in NZ was so related to what they wanted, I got it.

The research is based out of the University of QLD so I went to Brisbane for 6 months but ended up on Christmas Island where I lived for a good 3 years. It’s so far away and I realised that I was going to have to embed myself there to get something meaningful done.

I had to leave my partner of ten years behind to do that, which was really hard, but worth it in many ways too. It’s such a special place.

60% of the place is National Park but they have heaps of invasive species. They also have a recent record of extinction including a bat, endemic lizards and native mammals. Most of the problems are caused by invasive species so they have been controlling cats in an attempt to reduce some of the threats.

There are also invasive rats there so we’re not sure what will happen as we remove cats with the rat population - they also impact native birds, eggs and chicks in particular. I’m trying to get some data on what rats are up to in the ecosystem so we can work out if we need to manage them too.

A lot of this kind of work has been done on islands all over the world but mostly on islands where there is just one invasive species. When you get rid of it the native animals bounce back.

Now we are starting to look at more complex islands where there are many invasive species. We need to spend more time monitoring while we play around in these ecosystems.

As humans, we have the capacity to mess things up but we also have the capacity to fix things. But it’s actually really hard to fix things once they are stuffed up. It requires a lot of time, money and effort to figure it out. But it’s better to try than to do nothing.

I have one more extension under my belt but I want to get it done. It’s been 4 years of work but I’ve had time off doing other stuff.

Last year I went to Lord Howe Island and helped with the rat eradication there. I’ve been living back here since Feb 2020. I’ll be here until my PhD is done and then I’ll see what’s next.

Before Covid, I would have said another island eradication like on a Sub-Antarctic Island but now travel is all over the place. Also, I’ve come back to this area after being away for 6 years and I’ve really liked putting roots down and feeling embedded with the community again.

I love everywhere I’ve been, but I don’t get the sense of belonging that I get here anywhere else. It’s been nice to return with a fresh perspective and see it through new eyes. You have to go away to really appreciate what it is here.

I’m 34 now. I met someone recently online - that was interesting during Covid times. I hadn’t dated for ages.

He is from Brisbane and he moved down at the start of 2020 to Ocean Shores. It’s been really nice. He’s been reintroducing me to the area in ways I haven’t experienced before and I’ve been showing him around too. He’s a muso and a surveyor. It’s been really nice seeing home again through someone else's eyes.”