Sustainable agriculture and protecting biodiversity in our unique and fragile landscape are critically important and linked issues especially as climate change advances.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have successfully managed and lived off this land, sustainably, for tens of thousands of years. During this time they have built up a profound knowledge of the environment, its ecosystems and constituent species, and how to keep them healthy and productive.
Thirty two years old, Bush Heritage Australia (BHA) now helps manage some 11,000,000 hectares of land spread across Australia, most of this in partnership with Traditional Owners on their own lands, but also on reserves that BHA owns. In this work, Bush Heritage aims to bring the latest and best conservation science and technology to manage new and old problems. Working to manage fire, exotic pests, weeds, water movement across landscapes is increasingly difficult in the face of climate change. Western science complements and is blended where appropriate with Traditional Knowledge into each landscape, to restore the landscape to good health. Bringing respect and willingness to listen and share knowledge – old and new – is referred to as right-way science.
In this seminar, Rebecca Spindler and Oliver Costello will outline Bush Heritage Australia’s biodiversity conservation work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the application of right-way science. 2021 ATSE Fellow, Professor Richard Eckard FTSE will summarise our agricultural situation and needs. There will also be a facilitated exploration of how we can bring all this together for the betterment of agriculture and biodiversity in Australia.
Speakers
Professor Richard Eckard FTSE
Professor and Director, Primary Industries Climate Challenges Centre, University of Melbourne
Richard is Professor and Director of the Primary Industries Climate Challenges Centre at the University of Melbourne. His research focuses on carbon farming and accounting towards carbon neutral agriculture, managing extreme climate events and options for agriculture to respond to a changing climate.
Richard is a science advisor to the Victorian, Australian, New Zealand, UK and EU governments, the International Livestock Research Institute and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on climate change adaptation, mitigation and policy development in agriculture. In 2021, Richard was named on the Reuters list of the world’s 1,000 most influential climate scientists and appointed as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. Richard is a member of the Victorian Agriculture and Climate Change Ministerial Council.
Rebecca Spindler
Executive Manager, Science and Conservation, Bush Heritage Australia
Rebecca has been engaged in the Australian and international conservation science sector for over 20 years with experience in USA, China and South America when working for the Smithsonian Institution and in Australia in government and non-government agencies. 10 years as Head of Science and Conservation at Taronga Conservation Society, where she built and managed a multi-disciplinary team to address key environmental issues in partnership with impact managers in government and industry. She joined Bush Heritage Australia as Executive Manager, Science and Conservation.
Her team guides conservation and knowledge building strategies, facilitates inclusive planning and generates collaborative approaches to science, conservation action and best practice impact reporting. She is a Councillor on the newly established Biodiversity Council, on the NSW National Parks Advisory Council Board, and holds adjunct positions at UNSW, Unimelb and QUT. Rebecca is a co-founder of the Conservation Futures project managed by Oliver Costello and guided by Aboriginal case study partners, Rebecca and Prof Brendan Wintle from the University of Melbourne
Oliver Costello
Project Manager, Bush Heritage Australia, Conservation Futures, Founder and Director, Jagun Alliance Aboriginal Corporation
Oliver Costello is a Bundjalung man from the northern rivers of NSW, with diverse personal and professional expertise in culturally connected stewardship of Country. He is currently focused on First Nations knowledge and practice in caring for Country through regenerative cultural practices that support preparedness, recovery and resilience in relation to climate change, bushfires, floods and storms. He has extensive experience working within the Indigenous land and sea management, conservation and cultural heritage management sectors and has been particularly interested in empowering Aboriginal perspectives on fire, threatened and culturally significant species.
Oliver started the Firesticks initiative in 2009 and was a founding Director and CEO of the Firesticks Alliance Indigenous Corporation in 2018. He currently serves as a director with Jagun Alliance Aboriginal Corporation, the National Koala Recovery Team Board, Natural Hazards Research Australia and is Vice President of the Northern Rivers Fire and Biodiversity Consortium. he works part-time for Bush Heritage Australia as the Project Manager for Conservation Futures and is an Independent consultant in his spare time.