The team at Winton Wetlands manage, monitor and promote the wetlands, providing a world-class experience for visitors and working on the ground to ensure our fauna, flora and unique history are maintained and protected.
Behind The Scenes
Daniel Basham
CEODaniel brings environmental management experience to the wetlands, and is an advocate for community voice and a healthy future.
Tanya McAlpin
Visitation ManagerTanya works tirelessly to create unforgettable experiences for our visitors and community.
Claire Birch
Administration CoordinatorIntertwining her interests with her education in media, marketing and enviro science, Claire's role in the office is just about as diverse.
Zoë Roberts
Project OfficerZoe works in the Winton Wetlands project office using her creativity and love of the natural environment.
Chloe Trevena
PR & Admin AssistantChloe keeps us connected and is our resident expert in good news stories.
In the Mokoan Hub & Cafe
Sam Trevena
Cafe ManagerSam rules the Mokoan Hub and Café and loves to cook up a storm in the company of her fantastic team.
Ellie Sanders
Assistant Cafe ManagerEllie loves being innovative in the kitchen and prevents staff and visitor sugar and caffeine withdrawals.
Shan Luo
Visitor Experience OfficerShan’s in her element adventuring in nature and puts her tourism background and education to good use with our visitors.
In the Field
Behind The Scenes
Daniel Basham
CEODaniel landed at Winton Wetlands in August 2018 and brought with him a cornucopia of environmental management experience. Daniel’s enthusiasm towards the necessity for a community voice is strong and makes for an amicable and respectable leader who can both engage people and consider the environmental future of the wetlands space. Daniel currently lives on the Murray River and has been fortunate to experience life in Tasmania and New South Wales.
Spirit Animal: Race horse.
Habitat: Car.
Super power: Consideration and respect for others.
Tanya McAlpin
Visitation ManagerTanya has a solid background in managing awesome events. She’s a world traveler and has a partiality for wining and dining. And coffee. Now as our Visitation Manager, she’s passionate about creating unforgettable visitor experiences. Personally speaking, Tanya is most content at the coast; she enjoys reading Scandi crime fiction, binge watching music biopics and scrolling Instagram for home reno inspiration.
Spirit Animal: Butterfly – A butterfly’s ideal temperature is 29 degrees. Less than 12 degrees, butterflies are rendered immobile. Same with Tanya.
Habitat: Beach. Ocean. Coastline. Shoreline.
Super power: Flatpak mastery and Simpsons references. Try her sometime. With either.
Claire Birch
Administration CoordinatorClaire is a tree-changer who escaped Melbourne’s hustle and bustle to find the vast expanses of north-east Victoria where she feels quite at home. In the Project Office, Claire intertwines her interests with her education in media, marketing and environmental science. Her role at Winton Wetlands is just about as diverse so she’s always kept on her toes!
Spirit Animal: Her own pet cat. Spoilt and not a care in the world!
Habitat: Up a mountain in the cool. No hot seasons required.
Super power: Stepping out of the comfort zone (…then worrying about it later).
Zoë Roberts
Project OfficerZoë travelled for an entire day to end up on the shores of Australia from England. She works in the Winton Wetlands project office using her creativity and love of the natural environment and all things animal, insect, reptile, amphibian! Zoe doesn’t like heights and is content at sea level or under. Zoe loves peanut butter. Feed her peanut butter and she will be happy.
Spirit Animal: Koala Mermaid.
Habitat: Kelp garden.
Super power: Breathing under water (Zoe scubas and has swam with 12 species of shark!).
Chloe Trevena
PR & Admin AssistantBorn and raised as a Chesney Vale local, Chloe’s got the best drive time to work out of all the staff (envious!). Social media platforms come second nature to Chloe and you’ll find her whipping up a good news story at the click of the fingers. She’s our Facebook life saver and keeps us connected with our visitors and stakeholders.
Spirit Animal: Lion. Chloe holds great importance in her pride (a.k.a family and friends).
Habitat: Any body of water. Ocean excluded as it is truly petrifying.
Super power: Time travelling. Chloe’s love of Elvis and The Beatles suggests she time-warped to the 2000s from the 60s.
In the Mokoan Hub & Cafe
Samantha Trevena
Sam rules the Mokoan Hub and Café and keeps things on the straight and narrow. She’s highly experienced in eating Japanese food and has a dislike towards snakes, spiders and weeds – this is a good reason why she works in the café and not as a Winton Wetlands ranger. She loves to cook up a storm and is proud to be surrounded by her fantastic team.
Spirit Animal: Cat. She’ll always have a cat by her side.
Habitat: The ocean, or caravan with her hubby.
Super power: Secretly a hairdresser!
Ellie Sanders
Assistant Cafe ManagerWithout Ellie the staff at Winton Wetlands would suffer from significant sugar and caffeine withdrawals. Ellie likes to use staff as her test dummies for her new food and beverages inventions – no one has ever been heard complaining about this matter. Ellie is from the land of beef, tango and Malbec – Argentina – and she’s proud of her ability to speak two languages and have an accent that stands out from the crowd in Chesney Vale.
Spirit Animal: Monkey or dog as both have the ability to smile.
Habitat: Kitchen…or a glacier.
Super power: Training staff to become baristas.
Yushan Luo
Visitor Experience OfficerShan’s in her element adventuring in nature and puts her tourism background and education to good use with our visitors. You’ll find Shan biking, paddling, climbing, walking, swimming and definitely not in front of a computer for too long. Shan hails from southern China – she’s a global citizen, multilingual and you can give her a tent or a 5-star hotel, a city or a country town and she’ll be happy.
Spirit Animal: Turtle Mermaid.
Habitat: Nature – anywhere in it.
Super power: Succulent cultivation.
In the Field
Dr. Lisa Farnsworth
Restoration EcologistLisa is our resident doctor. She’s an ecological expert and brings a wealth of knowledge to Winton Wetlands. Born and raised in the Victorian high country, she’s a reptile lover, David Attenborough fan and has a mission to connect people with nature. Right now Lisa’s breeding her own population of humans and is on maternity leave until Spring 2019.
Spirit Animal: Thorny devil.
Habitat: Mountains, rivers, deserts – you name it.
Super power: Snake handling.
Lance Lloyd
Aquatic EcologistIntroducing our invaluable scientist, Lance Lloyd! Bringing with him a wealth of scientific experience and first hand, on ground knowledge of the area, Lance has been involved with the restoration of Winton Wetlands for decades. Lance has worked on significant water management projects throughout his career and is highly regarded in his field. We’ve been privileged to see Lance at work – being privy to memorable moments…like the time he found goldfish-carp hybrids and a baby cod!
Spirit Animal: River blackfish.
Habitat: Take a guess!
Super power: Environment repairer.
David Malone
Senior RangerDave manages 8,750 hectares of land whilst the rest of us struggle to keep our backyards weeded. He works like The Flash and is usually one step ahead of the team. His work ethic is backed up by a career built on on-ground efforts, field work experience and studies in Environmental Science. We think Dave secretly likes birdwatching as a hobby but he doesn’t let on much as it might clash with his penchant towards heavy metal bands.
Spirit Animal: Bird of prey. Dave spends a lot of time looking at the ground from an aerial perspective.
Habitat: Music festivals.
Super power: Mapping!