CRC TiME

As the Global Nature Positive Summit draws to a close, I leave feeling the energy of connecting (and often re-connecting) with the amazing people working across so many sectors and different parts of our economy to drive change towards a nature positive future. This also has been a summit of deep personal reflection on the journey and my experience with it to date. I heard again the importance of enabling local, on ground action and it takes me back to my transition from childhood to a young adult during the ‘Decade of Landcare’ initiated by the National Farmers' Federation and Australian Conservation Foundation. A period when I was dragged to meetings as my parents helped form a catchment group uniting farmers and landholders in the Wheatbelt. They spent more than 20 years on the committee and over 30 years later the group is still working to restore the landscape; for me, this was a time of field walks, listening to experts, studying water quality, monitoring, collecting seed and of course community tree planting (including the first Activate event Rosanne Scott!). With the sale of Telstra and bilateral funding, the governance evolved and regional bodies formed providing unique infrastructure to connect local-regional-national. This was a critical time for Australia’s relationship with nature and there are many lessons that I drew from this time and saw again reflected this week around the value of community led action and supporting the social and physical infrastructure that can deliver nature based solutions. But I also saw a few fundamental changes: 1. Acknowledgment of the need for whole of system change-if we want be nature positive, then the fundamentals of our global economy cannot put more value on nature negative decisions than positive decisions. 2. Combinations of private and public financing options are needed to provide the capital to invest in solutions at scale and recognise these solutions will be different across space and will take time. 3. We need transparency and metrics that both track and allow us to have real insights into how nature is changing from local-regional-national-global scales (landscapes and value chains). 4. Partnerships and collaboration will be critical, but this needs go beyond the experiences of the decade of landcare, to the amazing partnerships I get to see today through our work and connections at CRC TiME 5. Celebrating and valuing cultural knowledge and First Nations leadership in our Nature Positive transformation. This week I spent time with amazing colleagues and friends met over the last 30 years (!) from the mining industry, agricultural sector, NRM Regions, Government, First Nations and Research communities and met new leaders in the finance and investment community. I leave both with a sense of hope that we are moving to a system that truly values nature but also a very real understanding of the challenges faced and the need to ensure we avoid perverse outcomes.

Come join us at our incredible UN Day Anniversary Celebration on 18 October at The Duxton. The evening will commemorate the remarkable 79-year journey of the United Nations, spotlighting its unwavering dedication to fostering global harmony, security, human rights, and sustainable development. This event will also showcase our collective endeavours to overcome the most pressing challenges that our world faces as well as recognising the most outstanding contributions made by our community members. For the Environment Award finalists pictured below, here's our best Wishes to: Yu Dong, Parwinder Kaur and Vern Newton!   Get your tickets here: https://lnkd.in/gKJtcfr6 #UNAAWA #UNDay24 #SDGs #UN #GlobalGoals #ChangeMakers 

Great news! The proposal deadline for the 11th World Conference on Ecological Restoration (SER2025) has been extended! You now have until 15 October 2024 to submit proposals for symposia, workshops, and training courses. Don’t miss your chance to contribute to advancing ecological restoration science, practice, and policy at this prestigious global event in Denver, Colorado! Learn more about important deadlines and how to submit your proposal here: https://lnkd.in/dBtCBwWX #EcologicalRestoration #RestorationScience #SER2025 #CallForProposals

While visiting the Eden Project this week, I had the chance to speak with a person who has been volunteering for the Eden Project for 20+ years. The question she asked me-do you think the project is still relevant? It struck me so strongly as I had not fully appreciated how ahead of its time this project really was. The answer of course is ‘Yes’, but even more importantly the project is still ahead of its time even now. Its messages of transformation, innovation and centrality of nature are so critical in our sector today and the project is a living example that is still evolving, leading and putting in practice new ideas. The Eden Project is clearly a live story of transformation of mine sites through closure into something that is considered valuable by communities, economies and nature in their post mining futures. Thanks Dan James for hosting me and sharing your knowledge and drive for innovation. The Edens project’s publishing of the ‘102 Things to do with a hole in the ground’ by Peter Whitbread-Abrutat & Robert Lowe builds further on this and is such an important resource to fuel imagination and consider feasibility of what may work in each mines’ unique geographic context. It was a pleasure to also see this so prominent at the ICMM office on my arrival and again highlights how contemporary and still ahead of its time the Eden Project is as we still seek to replicate not the project itself, but what it represents in transformation enabling positive post mine legacies. Finally, the last key message I took from my visit was one of regional context. This is a region with a long mining history extending to infrastructure, economy and communities; a contemporary community relationship with active mining and what is clearly a mined landscape with hills and lakes made from the ‘waste’ and ‘holes’ mining creates; and a future where lithium mining and renewable energy are generating a whole new conversation. While the Eden project is clearly an amazing success, with almost 1 million people visiting each year and learning about transformation, there is clearly a broader regional dynamic also at play. A perfect story for us to consider and learn from, well ahead of its time and one we continue to learn from….and how lucky am I to have had the chance to experience it!