Virginia Young has been involved in successful environmental campaigns across Australia since the late 1980s, and in international climate processes and campaigns since 2007. She was awarded Wild magazine’s Environmentalist of the Year in 2001, and was recognised as one of 20 ‘Global Wilderness Visionaries’ by the World Wilderness Congress in 2010.
Ms Young has been the chair of Gondwana Link, a Western Australia charitable organisation providing environmental services in protecting and restoring the natural habitats across 1000 km of south-western Australia.
Previously, Ms Young ran the mining section of the foreign investment division in the Federal Treasury, pioneered a continental scale approach to nature conservation in Australia called ‘Wild Country’, and played a leading role as the Wilderness Society’s national forest campaign coordinator in the difficult arena of protecting Australia’s native forests.
