Yachtsman and global crusader
IAN Kiernan (78) — ‘‘an average Australian bloke’’ — decided something needed to be done to clean up the oceans while sailing around the world .
It led him to establish Clean Up Australia, which 30 years later is still going strong.
Ian Bruce Carrick Kiernan was born near Sydney Harbour on October 4, 1940, but was educated in the country, at Armidale in northern New
South Wales.
After graduating from Sydney Technical College as a builder, he later specialised in historic restorations.
A keen yachtsman, Kiernan sailed competitively for more than 40 years. In 1987 he represented Australia in the BOC world yacht race. He set the Australian record for a solo sail around the world, finishing in sixth place.
It was touring the seas where Kiernan became dismayed at the level of pollution — plastic bags, nappies, bottles and cans — clogging the world’s waterways.
He organised community event Clean Up Sydney Harbour in January 1989. More than 40,000 volunteers joined the effort, and a year later the national campaign was set in motion.
In 1993 he took his vision to the world stage, creating Clean Up the World, with 30 million volunteers from 80 countries participating.
Kiernan was Australian of the Year in 1994. Four years later, he received the prestigious United Nations Environment Programme Sasakawa Environment Prize for ‘‘mobilising tens of millions of people around the globe’’.
Media commentator Phillip Adams called him ‘‘the greatest garbo since Greta’’.
In 2014, he was fined $1000 and had his licence suspended for six months following a midrange drinkdriving charge.
Last year his name was among other worthy Australians in the running to be emblazoned on the side of a Sydney ferry.
But in a move that stunned the public, NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance made a ‘‘captain’s call’’ and opted instead for Ferry McFerryface.
FOI documents showed Kiernan’s name had received the most public votes in a naming competition that cost taxpayers $100,000. Following the news Kiernan blasted the transport minister.
‘‘He’s made a ballsup of it,’’ Kiernan told AAP.
He was chairman of the Sydney Olympics 2000 bid community relations committee and a member of the environment committee.
He died on Wednesday after a short battle with cancer.
He has two daughters, Sally and Pip, from his first marriage. — AAP