IAE Krebs Lecture 2025

Please join us for the Institute for Applied Ecology's annual Krebs Lecture presented by Professor Sarah Legge.

Ecology for people and Country: Culturally directed, large-scale fire management in the Great Sandy Desert

Australia is an arid continent, and its inland is covered by mighty deserts. Many people think of these deserts as a vast, unpopulated place that takes care of itself. But none of this is true. The deserts have experienced profound changes since European colonisation. They are ground zero for mammal extinctions, and deserts continue to face threats from invasive species, changed fire patterns, and now climate change. Aboriginal people and deserts have looked after each other for millennia. Colonisation disrupted that relationship, but Traditional Owners are reviving and reinventing their custodianship again. In this talk, I will describe some of the work being instigated by Traditional Owners and rangers of the Great Sandy Desert from my perspective as a collaborating scientist. The work revolves around reinstating fire practice and management, and integrates contemporary science with cultural governance and priority setting. Our deserts make a substantial contribution to the total area of Australia’s National Reserve System and to our international commitment to reach 30% of land protected by 2030. With minimal policy and science support, desert people are doing the work to make sure those commitments aren’t just hollow lines on maps and creating a deeply Australian approach to conservation management.

When: Tuesday, 9 December 2025 5:30-8pm

• 5:30-6pm Arrival and Mingle

• 6-7pm Lecture

• 7-8 Drinks and Canapés

Where: Ann Harding Conference Centre, University of Canberra, Bruce ACT

About the Speaker:

Sarah Legge is a Professor at Charles Darwin University, and an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University. She worked originally on the evolution of sociality, mating systems, sex allocation, siblicide, and intra-tropical migration, before shifting to wildlife conservation 20 years ago. Since then, she has paired targeted research with landscape-scale management trials to understand the mechanisms and impacts of threats like mismanaged fire and invasive species. This information is then used to inform conservation management. In these efforts, Sarah collaborates with on-ground managers from government, non-government, and Indigenous land management sectors, working in the overlap between research, management and policy.

Click here to read more about Professor Legge.

About the Krebs Lecture:

The annual lectures are hosted by the University’s Institute for Applied Ecology (IAE). Conceptualised by Professor Stephen Sarre, the then-Director of the IAE, the lecture series was proposed as a way of sparking discussion among scientists, policy makers and the public on topics relevant to environmental science.

The lecture series was named after Charles Krebs, one of the world’s foremost ecologists. An Emeritus Professor at the University of British Columbia, Professor Krebs has a special relationship with the University of Canberra – he is the IAE’s Thinker in Residence and regularly visits UC.