Mr Gillen was appointed chair of the Board in 2022. Mr Gillen is a biologist with a lengthy career with the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions and its predecessors. He has extensive experience with the conservation and management of the Pilbara region through his roles as Regional Manager of the Midwest Region and Assistant Director, Regional and Fire Management Services. Mr Gillen has been a leading figure in fire management and incident response for the State.

 Dr Trevor Ward is a retired marine ecologist, formerly head of CSIRO's national marine environment programs, and now a widely experienced consultant in global, regional and national marine issues, with previous teaching/research appointments at four Australian universities. Dr Ward was awarded the CSIRO Chairmans Medal for his joint scientific contributions to the Port Phillip Bay Environmental Study/Management Program in 1996, and has been closely involved with subsequent ocean ecosystem programs including Australia's national State of the Environment Reporting, and contemporary issues involving the Great Barrier Reef.

Dr Andrew Smith is an ecologist with broad experience encompassing academic, Government, and industry sectors. He is currently the Environment and Quarantine Systems manager for Chevron and is a member of the Gorgon Marine Turtle Expert Panel and the Quarantine Expert Panel.

Dr Kelly Waples, a Principal Research Scientist at the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, is Executive Officer of the Board.

Previous Board members have included Dr Andrew Burbidge AO, appointed as the original Chair in 2006 through his retirement from the role in 2021; Mr Brian Wills-Johnson M.Phil, a foundation member appointed in 2006 until his retirement in 2022 and Prof. Nigel deBussy, appointed as a deputy member in 2011 until his retirement in 2022. Previous nominated members from the Gorgon Joint Venture have included Mr Russell Lagdon (2006-2018), and Mr Johann van der Merwe (2018-2021).

The Return to 1616 project is set on Dirk Hartog Island, or Wirruwana to the local Malgana People, in the World Heritage Area of Shark Bay or Gathaagudu. The project aims to restore the habitats and native fauna within the national park to a state similar to that encountered by Dutch sea captain Dirk Hartog when he landed there in 1616.

The project’s vision is to create "a special natural place with healthy vegetation and ecosystem processes supporting the full suite of terrestrial native mammal species believed to have occurred there prior to 1616, which is highly valued and appreciated by Western Australians.” 

The primary goal of the project was to re-establish at least 10 terrestrial native mammal species and one bird species on the island, and establish at least another two native mammal species that may have previously occurred there, along with healthy vegetation and ecosystem processes to sustain the island's biodiversity.

The project is being implemented over two stages with the first stage  focused on the removal of pest animals including feral cats, goats and sheep from the island allowing for the second stage of native fauna translocations. Stage 1 of the project was implemented from 2012- 2018 and the Stage 2 will be implemented over 12 years to 2030.  Both stages of Return to 1616 are largely funded by the NCB Fund with additional support from the DBCA.

Integral to the success of the project is the implementation of biosecurity protocols to prevent the introduction or reintroduction of high risk pest species.  These biosecurity protocols are being implemented by DBCA staff, and their adoption by visitors to the island and other stakeholders is encouraged.

Major achievements to date

Stage 1 (2012-2018)

• Worlds's largest whole of island eradication of ungulates (sheep and goats). The eradication of ungulates (sheep and goats) from Dirk Hartog Island, Shark Bay World Heritage Area, Australia | Biological Invasions (springer.com) and Animal Eradication - Shark Bay.
• World's largest whole of island eradication of feral cats. Feral cat eradication on Dirk Hartog Island, Western Australia | Biological Invasions (springer.com) and Animal Eradication - Shark Bay.
• Confirmed absence of black rats.
• Commenced control of high priority weeds.
• Commenced documenting recovery of habitats following removal of sheep and goats via satellite imagery.
• Implemented biosecurity protocols Dirk Hartog Island National Park - Shark Bay.
• Commenced community engagement program.
• Many scientific publications and popular articles, see Publications & Media - Shark Bay. 

Stage 2 (2017-2030)

• Commenced returning mammal and bird species to the island. As at 2024, the following species had been returned with more species anticipated in the future:
  • Rufus hare-wallaby (2017-19)
  • Brush-tailed hare-wallaby (2017-19)
  • Shark Bay bandicoot (2019 to 2020)
  • Dibbler (2019-2023)
  • Shark Bay mouse (2021-2022)
  • Greater stick-nest rat (2021-2022)
  • Western grasswren (2022)
  • Brush-tailed mulgara (2023)
  • Woylies (2025)
• Continued control of high priority weeds.
• Continued documenting recovery of habitats following removal of sheep and goats via satellite imagery.
• Continued implementing biosecurity protocols Dirk Hartog Island National Park - Shark Bay.
• Commenced community engagement program, including:
  • a regular newsletter the Wirruwana News.
  • online education package for secondary school teachers to use to teach their students about the project: Education - Shark Bay.
• Many scientific publications and popular articles, see Publications & Media - Shark Bay. 

More information on the Return to 1616 project is available from the Shark Bay website.

WA Museum (WAM) researchers sequenced DNA from many animal groups across the Pilbara and from offshore marine areas to document new species, using these data to speed up the process of systematics.

The Pilbara landscape is ancient and diverse, where animals have been evolving and adapting for millions of years. Surrounded by deserts and the ocean, it is an isolated region where many species are awaiting discovery and description.

Thousands of specimens have had parts of their genome sequenced, creating a huge database.

These data will help researchers identify new species, understand how these new species arose, and assess their connectivity to nearby areas. This will assist managers to conserve the natural heritage of this region.

WAM curators have published descriptions of new species in the scientific literature. Species pages detailing the biology of the focal taxa can be found at the WA Museum website.

Specimens have been documented and maintained in the Museum's collections for posterity to help safeguard our natural heritage.

Sequence data will help to determine the area that species inhabit. This can inform the conservation status of species, which is particularly important for rare local species that are susceptible to extinction.

A team of scientists undertook field trips along the coastal Pilbara (from Broome to Exmouth), including the Great Sandy Islands, the Montebello Islands, and Karijini and Millstream-Chichester national parks and sequenced genomes of trapdoor spiders, scorpions, pseudoscorpions, skinks, mangrove birds, land snails, volutes, oysters, octocorals, hard corals and sponges. Four PhD students worked in collaboration with the project, focussing on diverse taxa including mammals, trapdoor spiders, marine snails and subterranean crustaceans. Over 60,000 DNA sequences have been produced to date.

Publications (through the end of the project)

• Harvey M.S., Abrams K.M., Burger M.A. (2015) A new species of the pseudoscorpion genus Synsphyronus (Pseudoscorpiones: Garypidae) from Barrow Island, Western Australia. Records of the Western Australian Museum 30: 137–143.
• Abrams K.M., Harvey M.S. (2015) A new troglobitic schizomid (Hubbardiidae: Paradraculoides) from the Pilbara region, Western Australia. Records of the Western Australian Museum30: 132–136.
• Wilson N.G., Kirkendale L.A. (2016) Putting the “Indo” back into the Indo-Pacific: resolving marine phylogeographic gaps. Invertebrate Systematics 30: 86–94.
• Harvey M.S., Abrams K.M., Beavis A.S., Hillyer M.J., Huey J.A. (2016) Pseudoscorpions of the family Feaellidae (Pseudoscorpiones: Feaelloidea) from the Pilbara region of Western Australia show extreme short-range endemism. Invertebrate Systematics 30: 491–508.
• Middelfart P.U., Kirkendale L.A., Wilson N.G. (2016) Australian Tropical marine micromolluscs: An overwhelming bias. Diversity 8: 17.
• Rix M.G., Huey J.A., Main B.Y., Waldock J.M., Harrison S.E., Comer S., Austin A.D., Harvey M.S (2017) Where have all the spiders gone? The catastrophic decline of a poorly known invertebrate fauna in the agricultural and arid zones of southern Australia. Austral Entomology 56: 14–22.
• Castalanelli M.A., Huey J.A., Hillyer M.J., Harvey M.S. (2017) Molecular and morphological evidence for a new genus of small trapdoor spiders from arid Western Australia (Araneae: Mygalomorphae: Nemesiidae: Anaminae). Invertebrate Systematics 31: 492–505.
• Allen G.R., Moore G.I., Allen M.G. (2017) Neopomacentrus aktites, a new species of damselfish (Pisces: Pomacentridae) from Western Australia. Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation 29:1–10.
• Perina G., Camacho A., Huey J.A., Horwitz P., Koenders A. (2018) Understanding subterranean variability: the first genus of Bathynellidae (Bathynellacea, Crustacea) from Western Australia described through a morphological and multigene approach. Invertebrate Systematics 32: 423–447.
• Layton K.K.S., Gosliner T.M., Wilson N.G. (2018) Flexible colour patterns obscure identification and mimicry in Indo-Pacific Chromodoris nudibranch slugs (Gastropoda: Chromodorididae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 124: 27–36.
• Umbrello L.S., Woolley P.A., Westerman M. (2018) Species relationships in the dasyurid marsupial genus Pseudantechinus (Marsupialia: Dasyuridae). Australian Journal of Zoology 65: 240–247.
• Rix G.M., Huey J.A., Cooper S.J.B., Austin A.D., Harvey M.S. (2018) Conservation systematics of the shield-backed trapdoor spiders of the 'nigrum-group' (Mygalomorphae: Idiopidae: Idiosoma): integrative taxonomy reveals a diverse and threatened fauna from south-western Australia. Zookeys 756: 1–121.
• Kealley L., Doughty P., Pepper M., Keogh S., Hillyer M., Huey J.A. (2018) Conspicuously concealed: Revision of the arid clade of the Gehyra variegata (Gekkonidae) species group in Western Australia using an integrative molecular and morphological approach, with the description of five cryptic species. PeerJ 6: e5334.
• Moore G.I., Humphreys W.F., Foster R. (2018) New populations of the rare subterranean Blind Cave Eel Ophisternon candidum (Synbranchidae) reveal recent historical connections throughout north-western Australia. Marine and Freshwater Research 69: 1517–1524
• Framenau V., Hamilton Z., Finston T., Humphreys G., Abrams K., Huey J.A., Harvey M.S. (2018) Molecular and morphological characterization of new species of hypogean Paradraculoides (Schizomida: Hubbardiidae) from the arid Pilbara bioregion of Western Australia. Journal of Arachnology 46: 507–537.
• Rix M., Raven R.J., Harvey M.S. (2018) Systematics of the giant spiny trapdoor spiders of the genus Gaius Rainbow (Mygalomorphae: Idiopidae: Aganippini): documenting an iconic lineage of the Western Australian inland arid zone. Journal of Arachnology 46: 438–472.
• Harvey M.S., Hillyer M.J., Main B.Y., Moulds T.A., Raven R.J., Rix M.G., Vink C.J., Huey J.A. (2018) Phylogenetic relationships of the Australian open-holed trapdoor spiders (Araneae: Mygalomorphae: Nemesiidae: Anaminae): multi-locus molecular analyses resolve the generic classification of a highly diverse lineage. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 184: 407–452
• Carmona, L., Wilson N.G. (2018) Two new species of the tropical nudibranch Moridilla (Aeolidia) from Australasia. Records of the WA Museum 33: 95-102.
• Richards, Z, Yasuda, N, Kikuchi, T, Foster, T, Mitsuyuki, C, Stat, M, Suyama, Y, and Wilson, NG (2018) Integrated evidence reveals a new species in the ancient blue coral genus Heliopora (Octocorallia). Scientific Reports8: 15875.
• Medrano, S., Krug, P.J., Gosliner, T.M., Kumar, A.B. and Valdés, Á. (2018). Systematics of Polybranchia Pease, 1860 (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Sacoglossa) based on molecular and morphological data. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

The remote west Pilbara region hosts high marine biodiversity. It contains three major marine parks including the World Heritage listed Ningaloo Marine Park.

The region is the focus for increasing tourism, and commercial and industrial activity that includes Australia's largest LNG facility at Barrow Island.

Marine environments are highly connected by both ocean currents and the movement of animals, so localised events that affect the health of coral and fish on one reef will impact other reef systems within the region.

Establishing a regional context is therefore particularly important, especially with respect to geographical gradients of coral and fish abundance along the coastline and the effects of regional environmental disturbances, such as coral bleaching events.

In partnership with The University of Western Australia (UWA), CSIRO undertook the first regional-scale assessment of the condition and long term dynamics of marine ecosystems of the Pilbara. This involved six major study locations between northern Ningaloo and the Dampier Archipelago, although more locations were sampled throughout the program.

The comprehensive assessment provided baseline information on the natural dynamics of the west Pilbara's ecosystems, including the health of coral reefs and the status of fish and shark assemblages, as well as defining environmental pressures and threats to marine biodiversity in the region.

This research has informed scientific models that are designed to help us understand how the whole ecosystem is interconnected and how well it can recover following impacts and natural disturbances, such as cyclones (more hit the west Pilbara every year than anywhere else in  Australia).

Surveys were designed to allow us to identify thresholds that influence the condition of reefs and the associated plants and animals.

Ultimately, this comprehensive assessment will continue to inform management decisions and responses that must balance conservation of the Pilbara's diverse marine life with commercial interests for long-term sustainability. 

PMCP partners continue to provide ongoing advice and assessment for conservation efforts in the region, ensuring that the five-years of PMCP research will provide long-lasting tangible benefits.

More information on the partnership including final reports can be found at the CSIRO website.

The NCB Fund funded a project with the overall goal of enhancing the cost-effectiveness and accountability of investments in biosecurity on Western Australia's islands.

The project involved a close collaboration between teams at DBCA and James Cook University, plus extensive consultation with people with expertise and experience working on the Pilbara islands.

The project focussed on an initial set of about 230 islands off the Pilbara coast between Karratha and Exmouth.

Existing data on native and invasive species were compiled from all available sources, complemented with expert elicitation on the presence and abundance of native and invasive species, threats, and the effectiveness and costs of alternative actions to mitigate threats.

Existing data and models were then combined with expert assessments to estimate the differing probabilities of pest species establishing on islands not previously invaded.

The project developed a new software tool that combined all the information collected, to identify spatial and temporal priorities for management actions to reduce or eliminate biosecurity threats on islands.

Achievements 

A comprehensive database was completed for the Pilbara islands, with records from hundreds of sources documenting species and habitat presence, fire history, human heritage sites, human visitation records, and past management actions.

The database also contains information from three reconnaissance trips to the region, multiple expert elicitation workshops, liaison with DBCA regional and district staff, initial discussions with experts in Perth, and habitat mapping using high-resolution satellite imagery.

Protocols for elicitation of information on management actions and costs were developed validated with experts. Comprehensive Bayesian Belief Networks were developed that assess the probability of arrival and establishment of invasive species to islands through multiple pathways. Prototype software was tested on a small data set before application of the full software package to all the islands in the study area.

Invasive alien weeds represent one of the greatest threats to biodiversity conservation. Recent research and expert opinion has identified stinking passionflower, a vine from central and south America, as one of the most widespread and threatening transformer weeds in Australia's north west.

In 2017 the NCB Fund financed an eight-year project that aims to improve conservation outcomes for native plants and animals of the Pilbara region. The research program represents a close collaboration between CSIRO and DBCA.

The principal focus of this research program is to mitigate the threat to biodiversity posed by stinking passionflower through the development of long term sustainable management options. Outcomes include:

• identifying where management interventions will provide the greatest environmental benefits and cost-effective returns;
• developing long-term sustainable management focusing on biological control solutions; and
• providing these solutions to land managers to achieve wide scale conservation benefits.

The project will include fieldwork across the introduced range of stinking passionflower, surveys for potential biocontrol agents in the native range, as well as controlled condition studies and laboratory work.  These outcomes will be supported by collaborations with local land managers and stakeholders impacted by the invasion.

Due to the varied nature of the impacts of the stinking passionflower invasion, it is anticipated that the project will have benefits for the conservation, agriculture and resources sectors directly and the tourism sector indirectly.  Project findings will be communicated to this diverse range of stakeholders with a view to showcasing how effective landscape-scale weed management can be achieved for this and other broadly distributed threatening weeds.