Gary Howling is Executive Director and CEO of the Great Eastern Ranges (GER) Initiative, leading one of Australia’s most ambitious landscape-scale conservation programs.

Gary was part of the original team that established the GER Initiative in 2007 and have since helped build collaborative conservation partnerships involving more than 280 organisations. He has a reputation as being a leader in providing specialist connectivity conservation advice and has been instrumental in initiating a series of large-scale spatial analyses that highlighted the importance of maintaining networks of interconnected habitats.

With a long involvement in connectivity conservation and wildlife migration ecology in Australasia, he has added to our understanding of the status and significance of Australia’s temperate woodlands, pioneered the development of statutory regional vegetation plans in NSW, and furthered the development of public policy on biodiversity conservation and natural resource management.

Gary holds a Batchelor’s degree in Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management and post-graduate qualifications in Applied Science (Wildlife Ecology) from Lincoln University New Zealand. Committed to life-long learning, he continues to enjoy sharing lessons learned along the way with others involved in connectivity conservation in Australia and overseas.