Australian of the Year finalists:
Elizabeth BroderickDavid MorrisonWill MacGregorCatherine McGregorJulian McMahonJohn GreenwoodJane HutchinsonAnne Carey
For more than a decade Jane Hutchinson has been deeply involved in one of the country's great environmental success stories that has delivered an enormous boost to Tasmania's precious wilderness, an area that is otherwise so often ensnared in bitter political battles. 
The avid conservationist heads the Tasmanian Land Conservancy (TLC), an organisation that has grown from humble beginnings to now protecting 65,000 hectares of habitat for threatened wildlife species such as the Tasmanian devil and wedge tailed-eagle.
As part of its efforts, the TLCpossesses 14 nature reserves, making it one of the largest private land owners in Tasmania. And it has established innovative programs with farmers to help them conserve areas of ecological value on their land.
"It is very pragmatic" Ms Hutchinson says of the organisation. "Sciences underpins all the work that we do, and we use business principles."
The TLC was started in 2001 when three "blokes" (as Ms Hutchinson calls them) met in a Hobart cafe to start a conservation-focused organisation for the state, each chipping in $50 to get it off the ground.
Ms Hutchinson, who  at the time was working as a lawyer, was drawn in almost immediately with the founders needing somebody to prepare legal documents.
From there she served on the board, then later joined the staff. She was named chief executive in 2011 and has overseen the addition of 15,000 hectares of land to the organisation's reserve estate and formed important business and community connections, helping turn the TLC into a $30 million organisation.
Ms Hutchinson says her environmental interests stretch back to childhood when she went bird watching with her parents in the white gum woodland reserve ringing her childhood home in the southern Tasmanian town of Kettering. She distinctly remembers  watching forty-spotted pardalotes, an endangered bird species, "flitting about in the canopy".
It is these moments that helped instil in her what she calls a "conservation ethic". From there Ms Hutchinson started bushwalking as a teenager, added kayaking and mountain biking riding to her repertoire, and studied environmental science alongside her law degree.
She believes Australians' desire to see nature protected is deeply ingrained, drawn from their love of the unique species that populate the country and their personal experiences of going to the beach, camping and living next to natural wonders such as Sydney harbour.
"I think people are connected to nature, I think people really like it. It is part of who we are as Australians," she said.
"It makes me incredibly proud as an Australian that we hold nature conservation very dear and that somebody who really represents an organisation and an idea has been nominated to be Australian of the Year."