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Martin Copley AM

To: "" <>
Subject: Martin Copley AM
From: Angus Innes <>
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2014 23:29:04 +0000


I only had the privilege of meeting Martin Copley in the last couple of years - 
although I have known of his baby - the Australian Wildlife Conservancy  - for 
many more. Not all visionaries are effective builders. But, like Sir Peter 
Scott of the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust and WWF, Martin Copley AM was that 
comparatively rare combination of those two talents. The vision was enormous 
and the building immense.
An extremely successful first career as an insurance underwriter in London, was 
followed by the outstanding second career as a conservationist in Australia. 
It has been reported that he used more than ten million dollars of his own 
money to acquire and develop the pioneering properties of the AWC (the first 
being a Western Australian property that was part of a bigger property that had 
been owned by his grandfather). The AWC's Business Plan - simple - the saving 
of Australian native fauna species from extinction. (Birds include the Purple 
-crowned Fairy Wren, Gouldian Finch and Princess Parrot.) The methodology: 
intense research, particularly into feral cats, feral grazing animals and 
aboriginal type fire regimes. His personal commitment, and the businessman's 
discipline of keeping administration costs down (below 20%), with the rest 
devoted to conservation productivity, has attracted unprecedented levels of 
private donations to conservation in Australia. Private donations include 
ordinary folk as well as other philantrophic businessmen.
23 stunning properties across the continent, containing 3 million acres, owned 
and managed by AWC - what a monument!
We have lost a great Australian,
Angus Innes 
                                          
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