Billionaire couple donates $120 million to conservation groups

Perth billionaires Alexandra and Julian Burt donate $120 million to 10 conservation groups In short: Perth billionaires Alexandra and Julian Burt have donated a combined $120 million to 10 conservation groups across Australia. The Australian Wildlife Conservancy received $25 million, which it says will help with its plan to manage five per cent of Australia's land mass. What's next? Multiple groups say the donation is the biggest they have ever received and it will allow them to expand operations. A conservation group says its "incredible ambition" to manage five per cent of Australia's landmass may now be possible thanks to a $120 million donation. The Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) is one of 10 environment foundations to receive a portion of the fund from Perth billionaire Alexandra Burt, whose grandfather was Gina Rinehart's father's business partner, and her husband Julian. It's one of the biggest philanthropic contributions to nature in Australian history. AWC's regional ecologist for northern Australia Dr Rebecca Diete said it took her a while to fathom the organisation's biggest-ever grant of $25 million. "It's obviously well beyond the scope of the budgets that I normally work with,"she said. "At the moment we're managing about 1.7 per cent of the Australian continent, and our strategy is to increase that to five per cent — that's an area the size of Germany." "We may not have known exactly how we were going to meet that ambition so a donation like this makes us sit back and go, 'we might actually be able to do this'." AWC works with landholders and buys properties across the country, where it manages projects to restore ecosystems and reintroduce native wildlife. Funds to expand research One of those projects is being led by the organisation's bat specialist, Oli Aylen. He said the money will allow for much-needed research into the animals. "Bats make up over 20 per cent of all mammals, but they are a species that are generally not included in conservation management," he said. "Now we'll be able to go around all the sanctuaries that we have across Australia and really just understand where these bats are, which of them are threatened and probably find new records of things." Bush Heritage Australia also received $25 million dollars, with the organisation's science and conservation boss Bruce Webber describing the money as "completely transformative". "It will go towards the purchase of a property almost immediately,"he said. The property Dr Webber is referring to is the 20,000-hectare Wooroora cattle station near Cairns, which Bush Heritage describes as its "most ambitious single acquisition ever". He said Australians will see the effects of the $120 million donation for years to come. "The next 10 to 15 years are going to make a significant difference to how much biodiversity we're able to keep on into the future," he said. A wealthy donor with a low profile Alexandra Burt's grandfather Peter Wright was the business partner of Gina Rinehart's father, Lang Hancock. Forbes estimates Ms Burt and her sister Leonie Baldock have a combined net worth of $4.2 billion. Ms Burt has been involved in long-running legal disputes with Ms Rinehart over the spoils of the Hancock-Wright mining empire and the donation suggests a contrast between the pair's views. The couple owns iconic Top End cattle property Bullo River Station, which is co-managed by AWC who deliver a range of land management programs there. Neither Mr or Ms Burt were available for an interview, but Ms Burt said in a statement the donation "felt like the right thing to do". "We see nothing but rapid decline in our natural environment and that needs rapid assistance,"she said.