Biodiversity Conservation and Recovery - A Cross-Sector Forum

On 4 June, 2022, leaders and advocates from across the Government, Industry, Academia and Community sectors met for a joint deliberative effort with select Fellows and Members of the Royal Society of Victoria on confronting the biodiversity crisis unfolding in our region, seeking a collective understanding of an evidence base, the political and socio-economic status quo, and aiming to generate productive collaborations well beyond the Forum.

Led by four new Fellows of the Royal Society of Victoria, who each provide knowledge leadership from Industry, First Nations, Government and Academia, we set out the challenges and opportunities confronting each sector, the tools being developed to help us all be more effective and impactful, and recommendations for further work on a successful, whole-of-society approach to the challenge of native plant and animal species decline in Victoria and Australia.

Our Fellows are: Ms Judith Downes, Chair of Bank Australia; Mr Damein Bell, Atlantic Fellow for Social Impact (formerly, CEO, Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation); Ms Fern Hames, Director of the Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research (DELWP); and Professor Brendan Wintle, Professor of Conservation Ecology at the University of Melbourne (formerly, Director of the Threatened Species Recovery Hub). Each Fellow provided a short briefing on the status quo of biodiversity conservation from their own perspective, along with a call for effective and pragmatic interventions to overcome obstacles to recovery. You can learn more about our Fellows at https://rsv.org.au/2022-rsv-fellows-appointed/.

Comments from the audience are provided by Professor Graeme Samuel AC (University of Melbourne) and Mr Gordon Noble (University of Technology Sydney).

To focus our efforts, we were guided by the goals and imperatives set out in Protecting Victoria’s Environment – Biodiversity 2037 and the December 2021 report from the Inquiry into Ecosystem Decline in Victoria conducted by the Environment and Planning Committee of Victoria's Legislative Council. This video captures the morning's presentations and room discussions ahead of workshops conducted in the afternoon.

Video Contents:

0:00 Commencement - Mr Rob Gell AM
0:38 Welcome to Country - Uncle Dave Wandin
12:45 Intro to Dr Anthony Boxshall
15:06 Dr Anthony Boxshall
16:27 Mr Rob Gell AM - Context on the Biodiversity Crisis
20:35 Ms Damein Bell - cultural landscapes and First Nations management of Country
34:43 Ms Fern Hames - leveraging scientific knowledge into behaviour change
51:03 Ms Judith Downes - balancing the unintended consequences of being in business
1:06:09 Prof. Brendan Wintle - low hanging fruit for biodiversity recovery
1:21:45 Panel and Room Discussion