Alex McBratney

Bio to come

Andrew Campbell

Executive Director - MSc (Wageningen), B. ForSc (Hons) (Melb), Dip.For (Creswick)

Andrew Campbell has been Executive Director of Land & Water Australia since March 2000. He has been involved at the cutting edge of natural resource management in Australia for 20 years. Previously a senior executive of Environment Australia from 1996, he was responsible for the Bushcare program funded through the Natural Heritage Trust. He was instrumental in the development of Landcare as Australia 's first National Landcare Facilitator from 1989–92.

Mr Campbell is owner and manager of his family farm 'Crowlands' in Western Victoria (wool, cereals, grain legumes and farm forestry). He is also a member of the Editorial Board of the publication Ecological Management and Restoration.

In addition to his duties as Executive Director, Mr Campbell is a member of Land and Water Australia 's Board Communication and Finance Committees. He is also Chair of the Joint Venture Agroforestry Program Management Committee and a member of the Land Water & Wool (Sustainable Wool Advisory Committee).

Andrew Moore

Andrew Moore is a principal research scientist with CSIRO Plant Industry at Canberra , Australia . After training as a vegetation ecologist at the University of Adelaide and the Australian National University , he joined CSIRO in 1989 and has worked there since on the modelling of pasture growth and quality, the management of grazing systems and the application of agricultural simulation models in decision-making. Andrew leads the GRAZPLAN project that provides decision support tools for grassland agriculture in temperate Australia . He has published over 80 journal and conference papers.

Andrew Vizard

With a background in research and consultancy, Andrew is an Associate Professor of Veterinary Epidemiology at the University of Melbourne (part-time) and a senior consultant and former Director of the Mackinnon Project at same University. The Mackinnon Project is recognised as a leader in delivering practical advice to farmer and agribusiness on a wide range of agricultural and economic issues. He is the author of over 50 scientific papers. He is also a director of several ASX listed companies and government instrumentalities.

Andrew Young

Bio to come

Anna Ridley

My 24 year career has concentrated on developing environmentally acceptable farming systems based on perennial species in grazing and cropping enterprises. My interest has been in assessing the impact of farming systems on water and nutrient loss and impacts on salinity and soil acidification. I have worked in both research and extension and contribute national leadership and mentoring to both extension and research staff, within Victoria and nationally. I lead the Farming Systems Program within the CRC Plant-Based Management of Dryland Salinity and am working with Catchment Management Authorities and governments to help make better policy and investment decisions into salinity. I have been heavily involved in developing a co-ordinated approach to practical Environmental Management Systems (EMS) within the Australian grains and meat industries. I am a member of a National Advisory Industry Panel advising the Australian government on industry-led approaches to EMS . Victorian EMS work, which I lead, is a collaborative partnership approach with Catchment Management Authorities, the state government and the Victorian Farmers Federation. We are currently developing and testing spatial information management systems to link paddock scale actions to catchment outcomes and which can be used as a vehicle to reward landholders for on-ground actions that contribute to improved environmental outcomes.

Carl Binning

Carl Binning is Chief Executive of Greening Australia. Greening Australia 's Mission is to engage the community in vegetation management to protect and restore the health, diversity and productivity of our unique Australian landscapes.

In the last 5 years Greening Australia has worked with over 9000 landholder and 50 000 volunteers to conserve more than 400 000 ha of native vegetation, plant 9 million trees and direct seed 13 500 km of treeline.

Prior to joining Greening Australia Carl was a principle research economist at CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems where he his research is focused on designing economic incentives and institutions for sustainable natural resource management.

Charlie Zammit

Bio to come

David Carr

David Carr is currently the National Technical Capacity Manager for Greening Australia. Based in Canberra, he is responsible for technical and scientific leadership and guidance for Greening Australia and its networks. David also manages Greening Australia’s national projects: Exchange and Florabank.
David has been with Greening Australia for 12 years, including time in Armidale NSW working with farmers on biodiversity conservation, farm forestry and revegetation. David has worked on species selection research, seed supply and management, revegetation techniques and extension methods throughout Australia. The Exchange project aims to make research and information easily available to people who own and manage native vegetation. David has published several books on plant identification and farm forestry for northern NSW.

David Lindenmayer

Bio to come

David Pannell

David Pannell is Professor in the School of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Western Australia , and Leader of the People, Land and Water Program, in CRC Salinity. His research includes the economics of land conservation at farm, catchment, and community levels; farmer adoption of land conservation practices; risk management; policy evaluation; and economics of farming systems. He was President of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society in 2000, a member of the WA Government’s Salinity Taskforce in 2001, and a director on the Board of Land and Water Australia 2002-05. Author of more than 100 journal articles and book chapters, David’s research has won awards in the USA , Australia , Canada and the UK , including the W.E. Wood Award for excellence in salinity R&D in 2004.

David Parkes

Bio to come

David Sackett

David is a director of Holmes Sackett & Associates, an agricultural consulting firm based in Wagga Wagga, NSW. The company services a range of farm businesses throughout S-E Australia . Advice focuses on farm business management including economic and environmental sustainability. Holmes Sackett & Associates also produce a number of publications that focus on the business issues in agriculture, ranging from production and profitability, through to human resource management.

The company has a reputation for challenging some of the traditional and sometimes strongly held views with the aim of encouraging a dynamic, progressive and profitable culture in agriculture.

Geoff Park

Bio to come

Hamish Creswell

Bio to come

Helena Clayton

Helena Clayton’s research interests include NRM policy design, participation and volunteerism in environmental conservation, and crowding-out theory. She completed a Masters degree in resource economics as part of an ACIAR-funded project to evaluate options for addressing sustainability issues facing rice-shrimp farmers in Vietnam . She is currently undertaking a PhD in the School of Agricultural and Resource Economics at University of Western Australia , funded by the CRC for Plant Based Management of Dryland Salinity. This research is exploring how interactions between social and economic motivations affect farmer participation in environmental markets. The research draws upon insights from the behavioural economics literature to assist in evaluating how farming communities are responding to market-based policies that aim to support their environmental recovery efforts.

Ian McClelland

Bio to come

Jason Alexandra

Jason Alexandra has over 25 years experience in environmental research and policy, sustainable land-use and natural resources management. Prior to joining Earthwatch Jason was the principal of Alexandra & Associates, a specialist research and consulting business, providing advice to non-government, government and private sector organisations on many diverse projects. These included strategic policy and program reviews including the evaluation of the NHT 1; the coordination of Land and water Australia 's Vegetation and Biodiversity R&D Programs, including establishing a new national R&D program on native vegetation, biodiversity and ecosystem services for Land and Water Australia and CSIRO. He ahs worked on the design and delivery of catchment and conservation incentive programs, including an incentives scheme for the management of high conservation vegetation communities on private land in north-west NSW and the investigation of planning, policy, incentive and investment regimes that together would accelerate landscape change in the Goulburn Broken Catchment. He recently completed research into the potential for public private partnerships to bring substantial investment to afforestation and ecosystems service markets in Australia . Jason's has held positions of Director of Greening Australia from 1991 to 1993. From 1996 to 2002 he was a Director of Land & Water Australia . He worked for the ACF from 1988 to 1996 and has had hands on involvement salvage sawmilling, farming, reforestation and businesses involved in sawmilling, horticulture, farming, and reforestation.

Jeff Bennett

Professor Bennett has 30 years experience researching, consulting and teaching in the fields of Environmental Economics, Natural Resource Economics, Agricultural Economics and Applied Micro-Economics. His current research interests focus on:

• the development and application of techniques to estimate the value of non-marketed environmental benefits and costs, and,
• the analysis of alternative institutional structures that give private owners/managers of natural resources the incentive to provide environmental benefits.

He is currently leading a number of major research projects addressing these issues. They include studies of land and water degradation in China and private sector conservation enterprises in Australia .

Professor Bennett was President of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, is a member of the Science and Information Board of the NSW Department of Natural Resources and is Principal of the consulting group, Environmental and Resource Economics.

Jim Pratley

Jim Pratley was a member of the EH Graham Centre for Agricultural Innovation at Charles Sturt University , Wagga Wagga. He was involved in the development of conservation farming in southern Australia including issues of weed management. In more recent times he has been involved in herbicide resistance as it applies to conservation farming systems and in the study of allelopathy and how it might be used to develop new varieties, natural chemicals or evolved crop management systems. He has been President of the Australian Society of Agronomy and Vice-President of the International Allelopathy Society.

John Passioura

Bio to come

Len Banks

Len Banks is the Executive Director Science and Information for the NSW Department of Natural Resources.

His Division gathers, analyses and distributes the knowledge to underpin the core functions of the Department as the lead agency for natural resource management in NSW. This includes biophysical and socioeconomic research and data analysis, information management systems to enable multiple use of data, and evaluation of natural resource management initiatives.

Len began his career as a research agronomist with the NSW Department of Agriculture, working on production techniques for irrigated crops in the central west of NSW. He then spent 15 years managing NSW Agriculture's natural resources portfolio of research, extension, education and policy.

With the formation of the NSW Department of Primary Industries from the merger of NSW Agriculture, NSW Fisheries, the Department of Mineral Resources and State Forests of NSW in 2004, Len was appointed as the Director of Regional Relations and Education. That role included the Department's interaction with regional organisations such as Catchment Management Authorities and local government, and managing the Department's formal education services.

Len joined the NSW Department of Natural Resources in March 2006.

Mark Burgman

Mark A. Burgman is Director of the Australian Centre of Excellence for Risk Analysis and a Professor in the School of Botany at the University of Melbourne . He works on ecological modelling, conservation biology and risk assessment. His research has included models on a broad range of species including giant kelp, Orange-bellied parrots, Leadbeaters possums, bandicoots, and Banksias in a range of settings including marine fisheries, forestry, irrigation, electrical power utilities, mining, and national park planning. He received a BSc from the University of New South Wales (1974), an MSc from Macquarie University , Sydney (1981), and a Ph.D. from the State University of New York (1987). He worked as a consultant ecologist and research scientist in Australia , the United States and Switzerland during the 1980’s before joining the University of Melbourne in 1990. He has published four authored books, two edited books, over 140 research papers, and more than 50 reviewed reports and commentaries. His most recent book is ‘Risks and decisions for conservation and environmental management’, which appeared through Cambridge University Press in 2005.

Mark Lonsdale

Dr Lonsdale was appointed Deputy Chief of Entomology in 2006, having served as Assistant Chief since 2002.

Dr Lonsdale's areas of expertise include:

• biological invasions
• environmental risk analysis
• biological control of weeds
• the ecological implications of genetically modified organisms.

Dr Lonsdale was awarded a PhD in 1982 for his work on the 3/2 power law of self-thinning in plant populations. Following this he worked as a biology lecturer in Nigeria before coming to Australia to work on the ecology of tropical weeds for CSIRO in 1984.

Dr Lonsdale worked in Darwin until 1995, and carried out research into:

• the impact of invasive weeds on biodiversity - especially Mimosa pigra
• intersectoral conflict in plant introductions
• the impacts of weed biological control on plant populations
• rates of spread of exotic weeds
• the impacts of fire on tropical savannas
• seed bank ecology
• self-thinning.

Subsequently, he became officer in charge of CSIRO's European laboratory in France , where he worked on:

• the potential for biocontrol of Vulpia
• validation of weed risk assessment systems
• the concept of invasibility.

Dr Lonsdale returned to Canberra in 1998.

In January 1999, he was appointed Leader of Entomology's Weeds Program, writing the business plan for the successful rebid for the Co-operative Research Centre (CRC) for Australian Weed Management (2001-08).

He was involved in initiating CSIRO's new program on the ecological implications of genetically modified organisms, 2000-03, of which he became coordinator in July 2000.

Dr Lonsdale became a Strategy Director - Environment after a Divisional restructure in October 2001 before taking up the position of Assistant Chief of Entomology in 2002.

Dr Lonsdale holds the following qualifications:

• BSc (Hons), University of Manchester , UK (1978)
• PhD (Plant population ecology – Studies on thinning in pure and mixed populations of plants), University of East Anglia , UK (1982).

Dr Lonsdale is a:

• Graduate Member of Australian Institute of Company Directors (since 2004)
• Member, Editorial Board, Biological Invasions (since 1998)
• Member, Executive Board, Global Invasive Species program (since 2004)
• Board Member, Invasive Animals Co-operative Research Centre (since 2005).

Martin Driver

Martin is currently manager of the seed supply and vegetation extension service for the Murray Catchment Management Authority. He has been instrumental in the development and implementation of extensive vegetation management and restoration incentives and the establishment of native seedbanks and seed production areas and direct seeding services to enhance areas under management. These programs have resulted in over 50,000 hectares under conservation management and thousands of hectares enhanced and seeded. These extension and incentive programs have gained huge client support, staff development, scientific collaboration, monitoring and public recognition.

Martin is also custodian of a commercial dryland grazing enterprise in the Riverina region of NSW and has spent the last thirty years gaining hands-on experience in vegetation management on the property.

His professional life has been spent initially with CSIRO Division of Wildlife and Ecology in vegetation management and ecology, thirteen years as Regional Manager of Greening Australia, Riverina and three years consulting and working for the Murray Indigenous Seed Service and subsequently the Murray CMA.

He has authored numerous extension publications and helped drive the development and publication of several regional vegetation guides as well as illustrating both botanical specimens and vegetation profiles and species lists. He has been involved in many training and extension programs and developed tools and systems to support this. Martin is also involved in many aspects of natural resource management as a member of the Murray Catchment Management Board, Murray Nature Conservation Working Group, Western Riverina Regional Vegetation Committee and consulting through PlainSense Vegetation Management.

Contact martin.driver@cma.nsw.gov.au

Michael Dunlop

CSIRO sustainable Ecosystems
02 6242 1715

Michael has a background in applied physics and plant ecology. More recently he has developed an interest in integration and has applied this to agricultural futures, assessing water systems, energy futures, and biodiversity-climate change policy.

For the last seven years Michael has been developing and working with scenarios of Australian agriculture and natural resources as a way of exploring interacting drivers and issues. His focus has been on the national scale with 50-100 year time frame. The scenarios he has developed are typically exploratory scenarios, ie futures that might happen as a result of assessments of contemporary and emerging drivers, rather than developing scenarios as options or preferred futures. He used scenarios in projects examining the future of Australian landscapes, the grains industry, the impact of climate change on the wool industry, water and land use nationally and in the Murray Catchment, and alternative transport fuels including biofuels.

Michael Mackenzie

Bio to come

Michael Robinson

Bio to come

Mick Keogh

Mick Keogh grew up on a farm in southern NSW. After obtaining a Bachelors degree in Wool and Pastoral Science at the University of NSW in 1980, he managed a beef cattle research station on the NSW North Coast for several years. He was subsequently employed as a researcher at the University of NSW , where he completed his Masters degree in 1984.

Over the next eight years he was employed as an agribusiness consultant, participating in a wide range of industry and government funded consultancy projects, often as the lead researcher.

In 1992 he joined the NSW Farmers' Association, and was subsequently appointed General Manager, Policy. In that position, he was closely involved in a wide range of issues impacting on the farm sector, at both state and national levels. He also authored a wide variety of publications on farm-sector issues.

In late 2003, he was appointed Executive Director of the Australian Farm Institute, a newly-established, independent policy research institute that has been established to conduct research into strategic policy issues of importance to Australian farmers.

Mike Robertson

Michael Robertson is a principal research scientist with CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems in Perth , where he leads a group of researchers focussing on sustainable land use in the wheatbelt.

Michael’s science background is in the physiology of crops (sorghum, maize, wheat, sugarcane, canola, lucerne) and has a keen interest in crop agronomy, simulation modelling and exploring the sustainability of farming systems. Lately, his interests have extended to landscape ecology and examining tradeoffs between production and conservation in agricultural landscapes. He has published over 80 journal and conference papers on crop and pasture physiology, agronomy and modelling, and farming systems research.

Michael has been in CSIRO since 1992, been through three divisions, and based in Townsville for 4 years followed by Brisbane . He grew up in New Zealand and studied Agricultural Science at Lincoln University , near Christchurch . His PhD studies were at the University of Queensland and followed this with 18 months at Michigan State University on a post-doc in the early nineties.

Murray Jones

Bio to come

Richard Stirzaker

Richard Stirzaker obtained a PhD from the University of Sydney in 1990 where he studied soil-root-shoot interactions in irrigated horticulture. He then joined CSIRO Plant Industry after being awarded a CSIRO Postdoctoral Fellowship to study the resistances to the flow of water in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. He joined the CSIRO Centre for Environmental Mechanics in 1993 where he commenced work on agroforestry, salinity and the water use of farming systems.

Since 1997 Richard has been employed by CSIRO Land and Water. He is based within the Farming Impacts on Soil and Water Quality research stream, which is part of the Agriculture, Water and Environment research theme. His current work revolves around the development and commercialisation of the FullStop Wetting Front Detector, a simple device to help irrigators improve water, salt and nutrient management. His team was awarded the International WATSAVE Award for Water Conservation in Agriculture in 2003. Richard also holds a honorary professorship at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

Steve Hatfield Dodds

Research Director, Social and Economic Integration, CSIRO Emerging Science

Dr Steve Hatfield Dodds joined CSIRO in 2002, bringing extensive experience in the practicalities of integrated analysis and its application to complex public policy issues, particularly in the areas of sustainability, industry policy, governance and performance assessment, and taxation.

In July 2003 Steve was appointed as the Research Director of the Social and Economic Integration initiative, one of CSIRO's national Emerging Science Areas. His previous career spans the private, public and research sectors, with positions in The Allen Consulting Group, Commonwealth Treasury, Environment Australia , and the Australian National University .

Steve's research and public policy contributions were recognized by his inclusion in The Bulletin magazine's inaugural ‘Smart 100' list of leading Australian innovators (28 October 2003). Steve has been centrally involved in a number of influential projects and reports, including:

• Contributing to the Wentworth Group Blueprint for a Living Continent (November 2002), A New Model for Landscape Conservation in NSW (February 2003) commissioned by Premier Carr, and Blueprint for a National Water Plan (July 2003);
• Contributing as one of the senior authors of Repairing the Country: Leveraging Private Investment for the ACF Business leaders Roundtable (2001);
• Proposing practical tax measures to encourage philanthropy in Building a Stronger Social Coalition (2002);
• Advising on the use of cost-benefit analysis and non-market valuation in public policy (1998-2003), including the developing robust frameworks for identifying the benefits and value of social capital and related social impacts (2001);
• Advising State Government agencies on the design and implementation of triple bottom line reporting and governance systems, including a series of projects with the Victorian Government to develop and practical tools for assessing potential economic impacts of environmental risks (2001-03);
• Working as the lead consultant with the ACT Government in the development of its long term industry policy framework (2002-03);
• Advising on two leverage funds, including the Greening Australia ‘green bank' pilot under the National Action Plan market based instrument trial.
• Advising Commonwealth and State Transport Ministers on issues in integrating transport and greenhouse policies (2002);

Steve has researched and published in Australia and internationally in economics and public policy, and provided expert testimony on environmental taxes, social dimensions of labour market policies, cost sharing arrangements for ‘public good' activities, and the design of incentive based policy tools.

Steve has a PhD in Economics from the Australian National University . He is the President of the Australia and New Zealand Society for Ecological Economics ANZSEE).

Ted Lefroy

Professor Ted Lefroy is Director of the Centre for Environment at the University of Tasmania.

He has 30 years experience in rural extension and research in Australia and overseas, having worked for departments of primary industries in Queensland , Papua New Guinea , Western Australia and at the CSIRO. He has also been a member of the CRC for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture and the CRC for Plant-Based Management of Dryland Salinity where he was leader of the biodiversity program. His research interests have been in perennial farming systems, particularly agroforestry, the management of biodiversity in production landscapes and integrated catchment management. In 2004 he was awarded the GRDC Eureka Prize for research into the environmental sustainability of grain production.

Tony Fischer

Tony Fischer graduated in Agricultural Science from the Uni of Melbourne in 1960, and completed a Ph D in Plant Physiology from the University of California , Davis , in 1967. The latter involved innovative research on the mechanism of stomatal opening. He has carried out research on wheat crop agronomy, physiology and breeding, both in Australia (NSW Department of Agriculture 1961-64, Australian National University 1968-70, and CSIRO Plant Industry 1975-88) and in Mexico (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) 1970-75, 88-95). His main interest throughout has been the wheat yield under dry, and especially under well watered conditions, with the goal of applying physiological knowledge to wheat improvement through breeding and agronomy, subjects on which he has published extensively. In 1988 he became Director of the Wheat Program at CIMMYT. In that position, and later as a Research Program Manager in crops, and then land and water, at the Australian Centre of International Agricultural Research (ACIAR, 1995- now), he has been heavily involved in agricultural research issues in developing countries right around the globe. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of the International centre for Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA, 1981-87) and also served on the Board of the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC, 1999-2004). He is currently on the Board of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI, 2005-). Throughout his scientific career he has remained involved in a mixed farming enterprise in southern NSW. He has received many awards including the Medal of the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology (2003) and the C.M. Donald medal of the Australian Society of Agronomy (2004). He has recently returned as a visiting scientist to the CSIRO Division of Plant Industry, Crop Adaptation, where he hopes to pick up again on some aspects of applied wheat science.

Tony Gleeson

Tony Gleeson has extensive scientific, policy, management, political and practical business experience in the rural sector.

He is Director of Synapse Research & Consulting Pty Ltd, Executive Director Australian Landcare Management System Ltd, Director of myEMS Pty Ltd, honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Agriculture and Law, University of New England and Member of the Advisory Board to the Centre for Rural and Regional Innovation, University of Queensland . For the past thirty years he and his family have owned and managed grazing properties in Queensland and northern NSW. He is a past Director of RIRDC and a past Board Member of the Queensland Abattoir Corporation.

Tony recently completed a Commentary on Land Condition for the Australian State of Environment Report 2006 and a major study on Farm Sector Demography-Trends and Policy Implications for the Australian Farm Institute. In May 2006 Tony moderated a panel discussion on ‘Ethics of Business in a Global Environment: AWB –Lessons for Australia ' at the Australian Davos Connection Futures Summit.

In his role as Executive Director of Australian Landcare Management System (ALMS) Tony is responsible for the design and implementation of environment management systems to improve land management.

Tony's work is informed by on-going work investigating the nature of creativity and the implications of those understandings for the design and conduct of rural programs.

Wendy Craik

Dr Craik took up her position as Chief Executive of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission (MDBC) in August 2004.

Prior to this Wendy was President of the National Competition Council, Chair of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority and Chair of the National Rural Advisory Council. Other former positions include Chief Executive Officer of Earth Sanctuaries Ltd, a publicly listed company specialising in conservation and eco tourism, Executive Director of the National Farmers Federation, and Executive Officer of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. She has also worked as a consultant for AcilTasman Consulting.

Wendy is a member of the Board of the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal. She has been a member of a variety of other Boards and advisory councils.

Mr Alan Umbers

Bio to come