Eco-Access champions the rights of disabled people to access nature

Meet Rob Filmer, Founder and Honourary Life President of Eco-Access

As a diabetic from birth, the possibility of going blind always loomed large for Rob Filmer, but he never imagined that he would lose both his eyes within eighteen months. He was only 24-years-old when he had to learn to walk with a white stick.

Being a nature conservationist, the loss of a sense that has been so fundamental to his appreciation of the environment, birds in particular, was an exceptionally cruel blow.

Together with wife Julie, Rob started Eco-Access in 1994. 'We realised there was a great need to make our natural environment more accessible to disabled people and to get people to meet each other,' he says.

The work of Eco-Access has contributed, among other things, to the creation of fit-for-purpose hides from which people in wheelchairs can watch birds, to Braille information in natural spaces and to the opening up of national parks for guide dogs. It also provides information to those who host disabled people for a weekend.

All these achievements can be traced back to the dark time when Rob Filmer arrived at Bourke’s Luck Potholes and found solace in terrain guard, Elias Malibe’s presence. Perhaps that is where the idea of twinning originated? Malibe would take Rob Filmer around when the office became too claustrophobic. 'He played a huge role in my life,' recalls Rob Filmer.

After Malibe, Julie Filmer took over as Rob Filmer’s 'twin'. He has never seen his feisty wife. They met when he was already blind and just as his body reeled into kidney failure. She was the one who rushed him to hospital for treatment.

Today he has to spend 5 to 8 hours on a dialysis machine, three days a week to do what his kidneys can no longer do - cleanse his body of toxins. As he writes and does research against the backdrop of the droning machine, Julie lobbies for funding and makes things happen.

Rob is the Honorary Life President of Eco-Access and Julie is the Executive Director. Together they make a formidable team.

[Text by Cornia Pretorius]

Click here to support Rob and Julie's dream of making our natural environment more accessible to disabled people