Janet Berry

I was born and grew up in London. At school, a teacher told me I couldn’t fulfil my dream of becoming a vet because I was a girl. That was a good lesson - it taught me that people in authority are not always correct.

At Glasgow University in Scotland, my world expanded. I was in another country with a different culture, customs and language. I picked up a wee bit of the blether, absorbed the heart-stomping Scottish music, met my lifelong companion, and qualified as a veterinary surgeon.

The Isle of Islay, a Scottish island clad in heather and history, was the most beautiful place to work as a veterinarian and have four precious children. The wild birds, geese, choughs, corncrake, kicked off my education in the growing competition between farming and nature. On the lighter side, I learnt the Eightsome Reel, Strip and Willow and many more Scottish dances at whisky-drenched ceilidhs that beat into the night.

Moving to Longreach in western Queensland, Australia, was a transformation. Dry extensive landscape, a vastly different livestock production system and weather that ranged from summer heat rising through gaps in the floorboards to rain events flooding and closing the roads. Poisonous plants and feral cats, introduced to Australia by humans, were both critical issues. I learnt another new skill, driving 1200k to Brisbane in a single day.

I now live in Tasmania at the bottom of Australia, a land of mountain peaks and ancient forests. There are more than 650 species of plants and animals currently threatened – by the logging of their forest habitats, the introduction of non-native species or pollution from industrial development. I am very fortunate to have seen and heard some of the threatened birds and encountered the increasingly rare Tasmanian Devil.

It is heartbreaking to reflect on the damage that humans are doing - to themselves, to the environment, to plant and animal life, everywhere across the world. There is so much to write about.

My life until now…

Tamar Estuary, Kanamaluka Country