13 June 2025

The 32nd International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB 2025) hosted by the Society for Conservation Biology Oceania Region, takes place in Meanjin / Brisbane, from 15-19 June 2025.  

The ICCB 2025 is about bringing together conservation professionals from all over the world, including traditional knowledge holders, researchers, practitioners and students, to share their insights, knowledge, and research with the aim of addressing conservation challenges and advancing conservation science and practice.  

At ICCB, the National Environmental Science Program Resilient Landscapes Hub will be presenting the science to improve management of Australia’s terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems.  

Maintaining resilience will not be enough to meet new challenges or adapt to a changing climate. To protect Australia’s landscapes and biodiversity – the Hub is working collaboratively with the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water and a range of other research users to co-design and undertake research that provides practical solutions to critical problems.

NESP Symposium Tuesday 17 June (08:30-10:30 AEST) (Plaza Level Meeting Room P3)

The NESP Resilient Landscapes Hub will be hosting a symposium drawing on a diversity of knowledge sources to support a diversity of protected, conserved and managed lands chaired by Rachael Gallagher, Samantha Setterfield and Victor Cooper.  

Program

1. Developing and implementing an Indigenous-led research strategy for Kakadu World Heritage listed National Park. (Victor Cooper, Connie Nayinggul, Bernadette Calma, Margaret Rawlinson, Michael Douglas) 
2. The use and impacts of wetseason burning in the tropical savannas of Kakadu National Park. (Samantha Setterfield, Victor Cooper, Margaret Rawlinson, Natalie Rossiter-Rachor) 
3. Mulyamiji March: A National Monitoring Program for a Culturally Significant Skink (Rachel Paltridge, Zecharia Spencer, Mary Butler)  
4. Improving Environmental Outcomes for Conserved and Managed Lands (Vanessa Adams, Diane Jarvis, Natasha Stoudmann)  
5. Evaluating Private Land Conservation in Tasmania’s Midlands: Impacts on Habitat Condition and Woody Cover (Natasha Stoudmann) 
6. Panel session 1 
7. Reviving endangered grassy balds in the Bunya Mountains (Jennifer Firn, Leeton Lee, Michael Smith, Nadia Chinn, Annabel Smith, Angela Dean, Karishma Menon)   
8. Collaborations to enhance catchment resilience and threatened-species recovery in Queensland’s Moonaboola/Mary River (Mark Kennard, Luke Carpenter-Bundhoo, David Sternberg, Tom Espinoza, Colin Burke, David Roberts, Caitlin Jones, Nathaniel Larsen, Brad Wedlock, Keira McGrath) 
9. Working in partnership: Identifying refugia from fire and drought in the Greater Blue Mountains World heritage area (Rachael Gallagher, Eli Bendall, Aunty Carol Cooper, Cara Lloyd, Renee Sales, Annabel Murray)  
10. A Community-centered approach to climate change adaptation for biodiversity (Brendan Mackey, Oliver Costello)  
11. Panel session 2 

Other NESP presentations at ICCB

Monday 16 June

10:30-12:45 Extended Symposium: Indigenous Australians leading innovative partnerships to solve Indigenous priorities for research, management and policy

• Teagan Shields:  Empowering Indigenous Australians to benefit from environmental research
• Rachel Paltridge: Combining Pintupi Knowledge with Western Science to devise Local Solutions to protect the Ninu (Bilby)

11:45-12:45 Speed Talks – Biodiversity Monitoring I

• Cath Dickson: Interrogating the Data – A Decade of Camera Trapping on a Private Tasmanian Conservation Reserve Pre- & Post-fire
• Patrick Norman: Determinants of forest canopy tree height: a case study in the Northern Rivers of NSW, Australia

14:15-15:15 Speed Talks – Protected & Conserved Areas

• Mitch Cowan: Contemporary Shifts in Fire Regimes and Long Unburnt Habitat Patterns in a Large World Heritage Area

14:15-15:15 Speed Talks – Conservation Law & Policy

• Helene Marsh: Understanding Taxonomic Inconsistencies in the Environmental Approvals Process
• Rachael Gallagher: Impacts of the renewable energy transition on global plant diversity

15:30-16:30 Speed Talks – Indigenous & Local Communities & Conservation

• Naomi Ploos Van Amstel: Redefining Conservation: Strengthening Resilient Networks and Unveiling OECM Potential in Northern Rivers, NSW

15:30-16:30 Speed Talks – Genetics, Evolution & Biogeography II

• David Chapple: Inferring extinction risk of Data Deficient and Not Evaluated Australian squamates

16:30-18:30 Poster session 1

• Melanie Hamel: Dugong Connections – strengthening collaborative efforts in dugong research, conservation, and reef protection
• Erin Thomas: Quoll-ity Control: Identifying Eastern Quoll Behaviours to Increase Translocation Success
• Edith Shum, Vanessa Adams, Georgina Gurney: Species as Placemakers: The Role of Species in Place Attachment

Tuesday 17 June

08:30-10:30 Monitoring Biodiversity at Large Scales symposium

• Matt Hayward: Monitoring biodiversity at large-scales and the BIOMON system

08:30-10:30 Extended symposium – Advancing equity and justice in conservation science, policy, and practice

• Georgina Gurney: Advancing equity in conservation practice, policy and science: an introduction

11-12:30 Oral Talks: Adaptive Management

• Sophia Jackson: Diagnosing the Cause of Decline of Eastern Quolls through Replicated Translocations

15:15-16:15 Flexible Symposium – Christmas Island and Norfolk Island: a case study of coordinated research for conservation of island biodiversity (Chaired by Nick Macgregor)

• Finella Dawlings: Managing rodents on Norfolk Island to protect threatened flora and fauna
• Chuanji Yong: Conservation Compass – Decision support tool for threatened species management on Norfolk Island
• Flossy Sperring: The ecology and conservation requirements of birds of prey on Norfolk and Christmas Island
• Jess Williams – Acoustic monitoring on islands

16:15-18:00 Poster session II

• Fi Freestone – How can we improve if we don’t measure: Lack of monitoring limits the evaluation of riparian revegetation to achieve ecological outcomes

Wednesday 18 June

08:30-10:30 Extended symposium: Integrated spatial planning for Nature and People

• Vanessa Adams: Proposing the Participatory Integrated Biodiversity Inclusive Spatial Planning (PI-BISP) Index: Tracking progress of integrated spatial planning

10:30-11:30 Regular Symposium: Conserving migratory species: new insights from migratory shorebirds

• Andrea Griffin: Quantifying predation risk and nocturnal roost shifting in estuarine shorebirds using eDNA, camera trapping and motus automated telemetry

11-12:30 Oral Talks – Integrative Approaches to Threatened Species Management II

• Melanie Hamel: Is listing subpopulations on the IUCN Red List a useful catalyst for actions on the ground?

15:15-16:15 Flexible Symposium – Enhancing Communication and Engagement to Improve Landholders’ Experiences Throughout Their Covenanting Journey

• Deborah Metters: Engagement techniques for encouraging conservation covenants and ensuring conservation outcomes through successive property owners
• Maaike Hofman: Enhancing Conservation Outcomes on Private Land: A Collaborative Approach in Southeast Queensland

15:15-16:15 Flexible Symposium – What is the future of fair and inclusive academic publishing in conservation?

• Vanessa Adams: Society journals: delivering on multiple goals

16:15-18:00 Poster Session III

• Natalie Rossiter-Rachor – The cost of not acting: Delaying invasive grass management increases costs and threatens assets in a national park, northern Australia
• Natasha Stoudman – Managing with fire: Insights from Australia’s protected areas