Catherine grew up in Hong Kong, watching Jacques Cousteau and David Attenborough on TV and fell in love with nature. She learned scuba diving so she could experience coral reefs for fun and studied marine biology at uni. She worked for WWF, IUCN, UNDP and other environmental groups overseas for many years. Her family moved from Queensland to Taranaki 11 years ago, to learn to grow food. But soon after they arrived, she was shocked to hear about the then huge opening up of Aotearoa for oil & gas exploration. She learned what fracking was and joined Climate Justice Taranaki (CJT) www.climatejusticetaranaki.info to do what she could to stop it, mostly in research and submission writing. Since joining CJT, she’s learnt more about social injustice and the systemic problems that we’re facing. She hopes to contribute to the important work of ECO with her knowledge and perspectives.

If you’d like to get in touch with ECO, please email eco@eco.org.nz or call 04 385-7545.