About Kuno

The underpinning philosophy behind Kuno is that nature is all of the world around us. That fundamental to the protection of nature is the connection between humans and the natural world. That nature is a public good and the shared inheritance and responsibility of all humanity. 

Kuno seeks to broaden and deepen the relationship between all of humanity and the Earth. That central to our efforts is the understanding that conservation is essential for the survival of our species. That wild nature needs sufficient scale to ensure that natural processes can survive and thrive. That connecting people with wild nature and protecting, restoring and connecting wild places holds out hope of a richer living planet that can fill our lives with wonder and enchantment. 

Kuno acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the lands in which we work, and pay our respect to their Elders past and present.

The purpose of Kuno is to foster people’s love for and connection with nature, and through that love, to enable for the protection and restoration of the natural world. Kuno seeks to achieve this goal through the development of an online platform for nature, and background support program to support the people and groups who work for nature's future. 

Central to this initiative is a desire to foster a connection with nature and a love for planet Earth, this ancient place that has guided humanity throughout our evolution, and that, we believe, is the best and most extraordinary thing that has happened to the Universe.

In trying to find the right name to capture the spirit of this initiative, we came across the word ‘Kuno’.

In slang, Kuno means ‘the best thing that has happened to the Universe’. In Indonesian, Kuno means ancient. In German, Kuno is a name which means honest advisor, and in fiction, a dystopian novel by E.M Forster ‘The Machine Stops’ has a character called Kuno, a child who has a strong affinity with and seeks to reconnect with the natural world.

All of these layers of meaning we felt beautifully captured the spirit of love for our Earth that we seek to portray through this project.

“The truth is,” he continued, “that I want to see these stars again. They are curious stars. I want to see them not from the air-ship, but from the surface of the earth, as our ancestors did, thousands of years ago. I want to visit the surface of the earth.” – Kuno, from E.M.Forster’s ‘The Machine Stops’.

Passionate Hearts. Clear minds

Kuno has a small passionate, talented and dedicated team. 

Board

Kuno's board brings decades of experience in setting up, leading and running impactful efforts for the conservation of Nature. 

Vanessa Bleyer is one of Australia's leading environmental lawyers

Alec Marr is one of the world's most effective environmentalists

Dr Phill Pullinger brings decades of experience and success in conservation and public policy to his role as Director and CEO for Kuno

Advisory board

Dr Jen Sanger is a passionate forest ecologist and science outreach coordinator. She has spent over a decade studying forests and the charismatic plant species that inhabit them.

Phil Vernon is an experienced director and CEO with a background in sustainable finance, impact and ESG.

Jamie Hanson is a strategist with many years of experience in communications, government relations, and public affairs, providing advice to a range of NGO and philanthropic/foundation clients.

Team

We have a wonderfully talented and inspiring team that runs our small but ambitious program: 

Ra'z Salvarita is leading our work in SE Asia and coordinating the Panay Nature project for the Kuno Foundation 

Marcio, Dan Broun and Peta Carlyon are talented storytellers who have contributed immense photojournalism, writing, film-making and storytelling talent to our conservation stories work. 

Javan Griffiths and Pri Burfield-Mills are brilliant developers and coders who have developed our webpage and support our web needs

Claire Boost is an amazing teacher who is leading the Bruny Kids & Nature project with film-maker and Supergroms' President Claire Gorman's support for the Kuno Foundation

Jess Ewing brings a breadth of talent, experience and immense hard work to her operations manager role for the foundation. 

Whilst global in outlook, this project started in Tasmania, an exquisitely beautiful temperate isle south of continental Australia.

For us, Tasmania has been a perfect place to think about the global challenges for nature. Tasmania is the birthplace of the global environmental movement, and has long grappled with the challenge of the destruction of nature and the need to protect nature. Tasmania has some of the world’s most extraordinary nature, wild places and wildlife. Over half of the island has at least some level of protection in nature reserves, making it an inspiring global example for the nature needs half movement.

A social transformation has occurred in Tasmania in the past twenty years. Long-looked down upon as the poor cousin of ‘mainland’ Australia, and a home of bitter conflict over the destruction of nature, a new vision is emerging. Nature-based tourism has eclipsed the extractive industries to become Tasmania’s biggest economic sector. Tasmania’s modern art museum, MONA has won global plaudits. Tasmania’s ‘brand’ as a place of peace, beauty, cleanliness and wild nature has been central to success in Tasmania’s food, services, attractive lifestyle and newfound economic transformation. Yet Tasmania has still a long way to go in fully realising its potential to become the epicentre of appreciation, stewardship and conservation of nature globally.

The first project for Kuno was to create an online field guide for the outstanding nature, beauty, history, heritage and ways to connect with the nature of Bruny Island. This field guide provides a platform for community groups, naturalists, writers and nature lovers who work to conserve and celebrate the nature and heritage of Bruny Island.

Bruny Island is an ecological ark, a small geographically well-defined biosphere that is exquisitely beautiful, contains a superlative representation and microcosm of the nature of Tasmania, and faces many of the same challenges for the conservation of nature faced by Tasmania and the rest of the world.

Bruny Island also happened to be where our Director works, so that helped too!

Since our first location was launched, Kuno now has projects running in multiple places - Horsell Common in London, Chitral in Pakistan, Panay Island in the Philippines, and Middle Head / Mosman in the heart of Syndey harbour. 

Kuno's mission is for life on Earth. Kuno seeks to connect people with nature, foster their love for nature, and through that love, ensure for the protection of the natural world and life on Earth.

We looked closely at a suite of possible organisational models for this idea, including charity, for profit, social enterprise and hybrid models.

Our thinking has been to build the most effective model for achieving the scale of change we believe is needed for nature.

Our answer is a unique model to deliver large scale impact for nature.  This includes Kuno Ltd - a social enterprise tech platform for nature,  and Kuno Foundation, a charitable foundation to deliver a 'collective impact' model of background support for the people and groups who work for nature's future.

This is a big idea that is starting small and learning as we go. We would love your help. We are looking for the involvement of people with ideas, passion and talent in helping to solve the big challenge of connecting people with nature, fostering a love for nature and protecting and restoring the natural world.

If you are passionate about or have particular knowledge about the nature, history or stories of Bruny, and challenge in its conservation, or about any aspect of the natural world and life on Earth – then we would be delighted if you would like to become a contributor

If you have any comments or constructive feedback about any aspects of the design or functionality of this site, or any errors in the content, we would greatly appreciate you contacting us.

If you’d like to get more deeply involved, and think you’ve got something to contribute to this initiative in web technology and graphic design, nature conservation, writing, science, photography, experiencing nature, nature expertise, or any other fields of relevant expertise, we would love if you could contact us.