Sunburnt country: managing Australian landscapes for production, climate and nature goals

Abstract: Climate and land-use change are exerting ever-increasing pressure on our rural, urban and protected landscapes. Across Australia, species, habitats, carbon, water and nutrient resources are strained by human impacts leading to lost productivity, disruption of ecosystem services, and increasing rates of extinction. Far from being solely an environmentalist’s concern, the steady loss of this ‘natural capital’ undermines agriculture, recreation and tourism, and other land-dependent activities on which our society and economy rely. Strategic landscape management offers the potential for synergistic outcomes that combine sustained land productivity with positive contributions to decarbonisation, nature repair and a reversal of natural capital loss. New legislation and emerging policy instruments, such as the Nature Repair Act, reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and the NSW Nature Strategy, are setting the scene for meaningful change. Realising their potential to reverse the trajectory of landscape degradation and biodiversity decline will depend on collaborating broadly across disciplines. To design successful strategies, we need to harness our best understanding of the soil, vegetation and landscape processes that govern our land ecosystems and their trajectory under evolving climate and land use. Three short talks will highlight with examples the capability science can bring to the strategic management of our landscapes at the nexus of food, energy, climate action and nature repair.

Prof Ben Smith

Director of Research, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment

Ben is an ecologist and ecosystem modeller interested in the structural and functional dynamics of the world’s major ecosystem types, or biomes. He has led the development of widely-used tools for exploring the interactions of vegetation and ecosystems with climate change, rising CO2 concentrations and land use. As Director of Research for Western Sydney University’s Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, he oversees a diverse program of research and engagement around the sustainable management of ecosystems and land-based natural resources.

Prof Rachael Gallagher

Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment

ARC Future Fellow

Sustainable Futures Global Challenge Program Lead

Rachael is a plant ecologist and conservation scientist working to ensure that plants are protected and recognised for their vital contribution to society. She runs a research program investigating plant diversity and adaptation, including experimental and field studies of plant responses to key threatening processes such as climate change. Rachael’s research draws on national and international initiatives on plant traits and ranges, several of which she contributes to directly as co-curator of the national AusTraits database. Rachael is a member of the Commonwealth of Australia’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow.

Prof Uffe Nielsen

Theme Lead, Soil Biology & Genomics,

Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment

Network Lead, Land & Primary Industries Network, NSW Decarbonisation Innovation Hub

Uffe is a soil and ecosystem ecologist who conducts research in pristine and managed ecosystems to address fundamental questions, with a strong focus on management of our natural resources. Uffe’s overarching goal is to use this knowledge to better manage Earth's ecosystems to protect and preserve biodiversity, whilst also developing and implementing evidence-based sustainable land use management practices. Uffe’s research increasingly focus on biodiversity and carbon co-benefits given scope for synergistic outcomes in a time where decarbonisation is critical. Uffe is the Theme Lead for Soil Biology & Genomics with the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment (WSU) and the Lead for the Land and Primary Industries Network with the NSW Decarbonisation Innovation Hub.

From: 12:00pm Wednesday, July 29, 2026
To: 1:00pm Wednesday, July 29, 2026
Registration: link

Turning Food Waste into Value through Research and Commercialisation

Assoc. Prof. Dharma Hagare – Western Sydney University

Mr. Norm Boyle – Founder & CEO, Food Recycle Ltd

Join us for a compelling session exploring how food waste can be transformed into valuable resources through research innovation and industry application.

From: 12:00pm Wednesday, August 12, 2026
To: 1:00pm Wednesday, August 12, 2026
Registration: link

Hemmed In: School Uniforms, Gender Performance, and the Illusion of Choice

What do girls actually want to wear to school? From a young age, Australian girls are dressed to signal femininity, and school uniform policies are one of the most powerful and underexamined ways this happens. While New South Wales public schools are now required to offer pants and shorts for girls, many private schools still restrict girls to skirts or dresses with no alternatives available. Even where options technically exist, they are often so poorly designed or quietly hidden that real choice is largely an illusion. Drawing on interviews with 31 Sydney parents and theories of gender performativity, this event investigates whether school uniform policies reflect girls' preferences, or whether they manufacture them, pushing girls to perform femininity on a daily basis.

Dr Jennifer E. Cheng is a Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at Western Sydney University. She is an interdisciplinary scholar who has published widely on issues of racism/anti-racism, Islamophobia, sport, and gender. She has a particular interest in deconstructing and revealing hidden inequities so change can be enacted.

From: 1:00pm Wednesday, August 26, 2026
To: 2:00pm Wednesday, August 26, 2026
Registration: link