Interconnected Ecologies: Native Bee Futures with Dr Coen Hird

In the spirit of considering the 2025 National Reconciliation Week (NRW) theme, Bridging Now to Next, which reflects the ongoing connection between past, present and future, join us at the UQ Anthropology Museum with guest Dr Coen Hird, interdisciplinary biologist in conversation with curator Mandana Mapar.

Coen works increasingly at the interface of Indigenous and Western scientific ways of knowing, drawing on his training in ecology and animal physiology to ask critical questions about environmental science and the responsibilities of scientists working with non-human or more-than-human kin. He will share some of his work on native stingless bees, and discuss their cultural and ecological importance.

This public program is held in conjunction with National Reconciliation Week, as we value and celebrate the uniqueness of knowledges, culture, histories and languages that have been created and shared for millennia.

The one-hour program includes time spent with native stingless bees and their hives at UQ.

Light lunch provided, registrations essential.

Speaker bio:

Dr Coen Hird is a trawlwoolway pakana scientist, teacher, and writer living on Yuggera Country and is accountable to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community.

Coen is engaged in a Native Bee Futures project at The University of Queensland, where he collaborates with Indigenous communities, scientists, and beekeepers to better understand the cultural and ecological importance of native stingless bees. His research is shaped by the tensions between the hegemonic culture of "Western" science and the custodial ethics inherent in Aboriginal worldviews. Coen's teaching and writing often aims to intervene in the assumed neutrality of environmental and biological science, inviting students and peers to reckon with its entanglements with power, land, and history.

https://environment.uq.edu.au/profile/24167/coen-hird

Images L-R: Austroplebeia australis nest entrance. Photo: Tobias Smith / Tetragonula carbonaria brood. Photo: Tobias Smith / Dr Coen Hird portrait