Col’s Chat – Locals through my Lens – Fanny de Busserolles

Col’s Chat –

Locals through my Lens

Fanny de Busserolles

300 miles from the ocean, the historical French town of Tours, in the beautiful Loire Valley, may seem an odd birthplace for a marine biologist. For Fanny de Busserolles however, it was no obstacle.

Now a resident of The Gap, Fanny is one of Australia’s premier environmental educators and sustainability advocates. “I have always been drawn to animals and nature and, from there, biology.”

En route from La Rochelle Université, University of Southampton, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, UWA and UQ, Fanny has pursued her passion and dream, finding herself in the field of deep-sea biology.

“I fell in love with the deep-sea and understanding how animals could live and thrive in such a dark and hostile environment. I spent weeks at sea on research vessels, heading all over the world, and months in the laboratory, studying how deep-sea fish perceive their world to shed light on their behaviour.”

When Fanny finished her PhD in 2013, an opportunity was offered to continue her studies in Saudi Arabia. “The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology offered me the research opportunities I craved, but life there was not easy for women. The freedoms we take for granted were not forthcoming. After a year, I came to Brisbane and spent the next seven years conducting research at UQ.”

In 2022, Fanny decided to take a new direction. “I realised that what I researched was not contributing to solving the environmental crisis. This combined with my frustration with academia pushed me to change direction and focus on conservation and community engagement. I wanted to engage with projects that were contributing to a positive change right now, not in 10-20 years.”

Fanny is of the ‘do it well or don’t do it’ school of integrity. “I’d seen changes in the environment firsthand: the Great Barrier Reef damaged; yellow and brown water: death. I needed to contribute to the right now.”

In 2022, Fanny co-founded The Gap Sustainability Initiative Inc, however while local initiatives remain invaluable, she was still looking for a way to make a broader mark. Fanny met Audrey Barucchi in 2023.

“I joined her team at Conservation Volunteers Australia. We worked there together until October 2024 and then founded People For Nature, a charity committed to empowering Australians to protect biodiversity and build climate resilience through education, citizen action, and science.”

“There is of course, no simple answer, but people have become disconnected from nature. To reconnect, we need to have a basic understanding of where our consumables and basic needs come from: food, clothing etc. It needs understanding and caring first and action second. The argument for protecting our future is not political, it’s about basic science, the inter-relationship between climate, nature and ourselves.

We need to get more hands on. We need to observe nature on a more immediate scale: sit under a tree and feel the coolness of its shade, watch the movements of a bird, or insect. All three parties (government, industry, citizens) need to be involved and acting instead of playing the blame game. Citizens have a real part to play and have the strength in numbers!”

As if to cement the call to action, I’m reminded of a quote from Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

In 2026, this seems truer than ever.

To find out more and to get involved, visit www.peoplefornature.org.au

Author and photographer: Colin Bushell / Colin Bushell Photography