

Harvey Locke is funded by the Thomas Foundation as part of the inaugural Thomas Foundation Oration in conjunction with The Nature Conservancy
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Keynote Speaker |
Harvey Locke A native of the Calgary-Banff area of Canada, Harvey is globally known for his work on wilderness, national parks and landscape-scale conservation from Yellowstone to Yukon and beyond. Named by Time magazine as one of Canada's leaders for the 21st century, his resume is filled with premier publications, keynote speaking engagements and leadership and advisory roles for some of the most well-known organizations in the conservation field. Mr Locke has led work on major private lands conservation projects for connectivity, national park creation and management. He is now playing a leadership role in a global effort to mitigate and adapt to climate change with nature conservation. He is a founder and strategic advisor to the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, senior advisor for conservation to the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and Vice President for Conservation at the WILD Foundation located in Boulder, Colorado, USA. |
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Session 1 |
Ian Walker Director Healthy Parks, Parks Victoria |
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Session 1 |
Mark Stone Chief Executive, Parks Victoria Mark has been Chief Executive of Parks Victoria since 1998. Parks Victoria is the park management agency responsible for a diverse estate of significant public land and waterways, totalling 4.1 million hectares (20% of Victoria), an asset base of over $2 billion and an annual budget of around $220 million. Parks Victoria employs over 1100 people who manage national, state, regional and urban parks, Port Phillip and Westernport Bays and many significant Victorian rivers including the Yarra and Maribyrnong. They also provide bushfire response and recovery services. Parks Victoria is Australia’s largest tourism provider with over 80 million visits to Victoria’s parks estate each year. Mark’s knowledge of natural resource management policy, flora and fauna and fire management, along with the management and protection of Victoria’s coasts, ports and alpine resorts is highly regarded both nationally and internationally. Mark has extensive experience in the not-for-profit sector and is an Australia Day Ambassador. |
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Session 2 |
Dr Graeme Worboys Vice Chair for Mountains and Connectivity Conservation, IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas Graeme is a protected area management specialist known nationally and internationally for his Vice Chair leadership and his compendium text books on protected area management. He has 35 years of practical protected area management experience; he has completed World Heritage evaluations for IUCN; runs international and national capacity building workshops; provides specialist management advice; and has delivered keynote speeches at key forums. Graeme advises the NSW Government on the Great Eastern Ranges connectivity corridor and provides lectures to post graduate students. He is currently publishing a new IUCN-Earthscan text on managing large scale connectivity conservation areas. |
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Speaker 1 |
Michael Looker (PhD) Director, Australia Program Since joining The Nature Conservancy in 2005, Michael has assumed leadership roles at both the national and international levels. He helped to identify the Conservancy’s worldwide conservation strategies as a member of goal-setting teams for two major habitat types: arid lands and grasslands. Michael also led the Conservancy’s regional Australasia team in the development of an operational plan outlining initiatives for conservation, operations, fundraising and government relations. Prior to his role with the Conservancy, Michael served as the Director of Trust for Nature for five years, during which time he spearheaded that organization’s transition to a landscape-scale conservation approach. Under Michael’s leadership, the Trust for Nature acquired Ned’s Corner Station—the largest private conservation purchase in Victoria—spanning 30,000 hectares on the Murray River in the northwest portion of the state. A botanist by training, Michael spent three years studying public open space management at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London, and another five years as the Superintendent of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne. Michael also spent eight years as a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Horticulture at Burnley College, University of Melbourne. His major areas of interest and research have focused on public open space management, especially vegetation management. |
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Speaker 2
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Professor Brendan Mackey The Fenner School, ANU |
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Session 3 |
Dr John Woinarski Principal Scientist, NT Department of Natural Resources, Environment,Tourism, the Arts and Sport Dr John Woinarski is an internationally recognised researcher in many fields of biodiversity. John has studied a broad range of issues including threatened species, biogeographic patterning of plants and animals, and the impacts upon biodiversity of a range of land uses and threatening processes. Dr Woinarski is an expert in the development of rigorous and explicitly quantitative wildlife survey protocols, that are now employed as standard practice within the Northern Territory, and increasingly elsewhere in northern Australia. This research activity has been complemented by his application of results to conservation planning, and the design and implementation of conservation actions collaboratively with Aboriginal landowners and pastoralists. |
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Speed segment 2 |
Dr Robert Lambeck Dr Lambeck has recently moved from his role as CEO of Greening Australia (WA) to take on a national role with Greening Australia as Director of Corporate Development. Robert is working with the Greening Australia team and other partner organisations to develop and implement large-scale environmental projects aimed at protecting and restoring globally significant landscapes across Australia, with an initial focus on the Mediterranean type landscapes of Western Australia and Victoria/South Australia. Through these projects, Greening Australia is striving to achieve “change that you can see from space” – truly transformed landscapes that not only protect the extraordinary natural diversity of the Mediterranean biome, but also provide new models for how people can live more sustainably in rural and urban regions of Australia. http://www.greeningaustralia.org.au/iconprojects/index.html Prior to joining Greening Australia, Robert was a Landscape Ecologist with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) specialising in landscape design for protecting biodiversity. His work on developing practical, applied conservation planning approaches based on the identification of Focal Species has been widely applied in Australia and around the world. |
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Session 3 |
Andrew Bradey Habitat 141 Andrew Bradey is the co-ordinator of Habitat 141. This project straddles the Victorian South Australian border (141degrees longitude east). Andrew has been farming near Edenhope in western Victoria for the past 25 years. During that time he has also worked as a shearer and as a revegetation contractor. In addition to running sheep and cattle, one fifth of his farm is managed for conservation. Through his involvement in a local community group, The Kowree Farm Tree Group, he has run numerous successful community based conservation projects. They have worked successfully with up to 70 farmers to carry out good, enduring conservation works. |
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Session 3 |
Ian Pulsford - Manager Landscape Connectivity Conservation, DECCW, NSW |
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Session 4 |
Penelope Figgis AO Vice Chair Oceania, IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas Penelope is a Board Director of Sydney Olympic Park, Chair of the Olympic Parklands Advisory Committee, Visiting Fellow at the Graduate School of the Environment, Macquarie University and Ambassador to the Parks Forum and the Healthy Parks, Healthy People Congress 2010. She has been a senior member of the environment movement for thirty years, including over seventeen years as Vice President of the Australian Conservation Foundation. She has written and lectured on protected area policy and World Heritage, innovative nature conservation and sustainable tourism. She has served the boards of the Australian Tourist Commission, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, Uluru National Park, Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Council, Landcare Australia, Jenolan Caves and NSW Environment Protection Authority. |
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Speaker 4 |
Peter Taylor Assistant Secretary, Parks Australia South Peter Taylor has over 30 years experience working with the South Australian and Federal Government. He has had a long involvement in the development of national policies and programs associated with conservation and protected areas. This included initiatives to engage Indigenous community knowledge and expertise in nature conservation; leading the early development of the Department’s current marine protected area agenda; and more recently working with governments and key industry partners to enhance the recognition and importance of Australia’s National Reserve System. Peter has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology and a Graduate Diploma of Continuing Education. |
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Speaker 5 |
Dr Charlie Zammit, Assistant secretary, DEWHA Charlie holds a PhD in plant ecology and has spread his professional career between academia and government positions. He is currently Assistant Secretary, Biodiversity Conservation Branch in the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts where he is responsible for national biodiversity, vegetation and forest policy issues and for developing and implementing market-based approaches to biodiversity conservation on private land, including the Environmental Stewardship Program. He is also part of the executive group for Caring for our Country. From 1999-2005 he was Professor of Land Use Studies and Director of the Land Use Research Centre at the University of Southern Queensland. From 1990 to 1999 he held a variety of senior Commonwealth policy positions in the Department of the Prime Minister & Cabinet, the Department of the Environment and the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade. Prior to then he held academic positions at the Australian National University, San Diego State University and Macquarie University. |
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Session 5 |
David Clarke Chief Executive Officer, Parks Forum |
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Session 5 |
Dr Judy Henderson AO Chair of The Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority A Paediatrician by training, Judy Henderson has an extensive record of involvement in global and local sustainability issues. She is currently the Chair of the Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority, a statutory body responsible for planning and coordinating investment in natural resource management in NSW. She is the Chair of the Centre for Australian Ethical Research and the former Chair of the Amsterdam-based Global Reporting Initiative, which is setting global standards for corporate sustainability reporting. Judy was the inaugural Chair of Oxfam International, a Commissioner on the World Commission on Dams and a board member of the NSW Environment Protection Authority. |
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Speaker 7 |
Drew Wagner, AgForce Queensland Drew Wagner is AgForce Queensland's Policy Director, with carriage over issues such as vegetation, climate change, mining, stewardship and environment as a whole. Drew has been at AgForce for nearly two years, and was previously with the Federal Department of Environment for 10 years, 7 of which were with the Australian Greenhouse Office. Here Drew worked on many different programme and policy areas, specifically with industry in dealing with climate change and the possible impacts of global warming, and the provision of essential services in rural and remote Australia within a sustainable framework. Drew currently sits on several State and Federal Task Forces and Round Tables representing both the Queensland and Australian Agricultural Sector, and has previously represented the Sector at International conferences, and taken a role in the negotiating party for Australia at the UNFCCC COP13. |
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Speaker 8 |
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Speaker 9 |
Nick Roberts, CEO Forests, New South Wales Nick studied at Bangor University in North Wales graduating with an MSc in Wood Science in 1980. On leaving he joined Tasman Pulp and Paper Company Limited in Kawerau, New Zealand where he was initially employed as a Mill Wood Scientist. In 1982 he transferred to Auckland where he held various marketing roles before being appointed General Manger Sales in 1987. In this role Nick travelled extensively marketing newsprint and kraft pulp in Australia, Europe and Asia. In 1992 he joined Tasman Forestry Limited in Nelson as General Manager Operations of a 78,000 hectare forest estate in the South Island. In 1997 this business was acquired by Weyerhaeuser and Nick was appointed Managing Director and became Sydney based Managing Director of Weyerhaeuser Australia in 2002. Nick joined Forests NSW as CEO in April 2007. In addition to these roles Nick has been actively involved in industry Associations chairing the Forestry Sector Operating Committee of Forest Industry Training in Rotorua, New Zealand, President of the New Zealand Forest Owners Association, a Director of Forest Research and Chair of PTAA and more recently inaugural Chair of A3P. Nick is currently a Director of Forest and Wood Products Australia. |
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Speaker 10 |
Dr Donna E. Little Chief Executive Officer, Qld Outdoor Recreation Federation Donna is the Chief Executive Officer of the Qld Outdoor Recreation Federation (QORF) and a board member of the Outdoor Council of Australia (OCA). Both of these not-for-profit organisations were established to provide advocacy for the outdoor industry and endeavour to represent organisations and individuals that use outdoor adventure activities across a range of purposes including recreation, education, tourism, personal development and corporate development. Donna joined QORF and the OCA in 2008, and brings a history of experience in the outdoor industry including 10 years teaching outdoor and adventure based recreation/ education within the University sector in Australia and New Zealand. Committed to encouraging collaboration and unity across the diverse aspects of outdoor recreation, Donna believes that a national social and cultural shift is needed to enable the benefits of outdoor recreation participation to be valued as a part of healthy living in Australia. This would encourage participants to self manage their ongoing sustainable involvement in uotdoor/ adventure based pursuits, rather than the current tendency to rely on a model of external policing or legislated control. |
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Speaker 12 |
Mr Andrew Grant, Chief Executive Officer, CO2 Group Limited Andrew has lead CO2 Group and its related entities since 2005. Andrew was the National Head of Ernst and Young’s environmental advisory division and was the lead adviser to the New South Wales Government in relation to implementing the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme. He has over 25 years experience in broad acre land management and has managed major commercial forestry operations in Victoria. As a widely recognised authority on climate change and carbon trading, Andrew has advised many major corporations across Australia and has performed design and audit roles in a variety of carbon trades. With significant executive management experience, he has a unique combination of commercial, carbon trading and natural resource management skills. Andrew was an Independent Director of the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Accounting. The CRC has been at the leading edge of carbon sequestration modelling and research. From 2006 to 2009, Andrew was Chairman of the Port Phillip Western Port Catchment Management Authority. Andrew is a Director of the Banksia Environmental Foundation, which runs the Banksia Awards, Australia’s leading environmental awards. |
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Session 6 |
Geoff Vincent Director and Principal GW Vincent and Associates |
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Keynote Speaker |
Joe Morrison is the foundation Chief Executive Officer of NAILSMA and is involved in research relating to Indigenous rights to water, Indigenous Knowledge, carbon related industries and general Indigenous caring for country. Joe was born and raised in Katherine in the Northern Territory. His heritage is Dagoman and Mualgal. He has worked with rural and remote Indigenous communities across north Australia for over 15 years, supporting communities in the management of their lands and seas. Joe has worked extensively with Traditional Owners in south-east Arnhem Land developing community based ranger programs and has advocated long for recognition and investment towards Indigenous Caring for Country related activities. Joe is a member of various Australian Government Advisory Committee’s relating to Caring for Country. He has a BA in Natural Resource Management from the University of Sydney. |
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Speaker 13 |
Dr Siwan Emma Lovett Director, Australian River Restoration Centre |
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David Walker Chairman, Landcare NSW Inc. |
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Speaker 17 |
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