How do we create a safe home for nature? Looking through the lens of global megatrends impacting us locally.

“How do we create a safe home for nature” is a capstone event for Nature Festival. 

This conversation dives into global megatrends impacting us locally in South Australia. Megatrends include waste and pollution, climate change, health and hope. By holding this event at the end of Nature Festival, it can pull together threads heard and developed over the past two weeks, and continue to mature the conversations beyond the life of the festival. 

The discussion is not a dooms-day indulgence. It is an event to demonstrate where we are and where we are going. People attending can expect to leave with a sense of hope and an understanding of what we are doing, what we should be doing and what you can do. 

On attending this event, we ask you to first ponder the question: How do we create a safe home for nature? Please come with your answer prepared. 

Panelists include: 

• Rhys Abbott, a nature campaigner for the Nature Conservation Society of South Australia. He recently was awarded the Leif Justham Young Achiever Award at the 2023 SA Environment Awards. 
• Kirsty Bevan is the Chief Executive Officer of the Nature Conservation Society of South Australia with over 20 years of experience in the Environmental Science and Natural Resource Management sector.
• Janet Klein. Janet has a keen and active interest in natural resource management primarily in its application through agricultural business, with an emphasis on sustainable viticulture and landscape regeneration. She has co-founded Ngeringa wines and Hills Biodiversity and currently sits on numerous boards including the Hills and Fleurieu Landscape Board. 
• Andy Lowe. Prof Andy Lowe is a British-Australian scientist and expert in plants and trees, particularly the management of genetic, biological and ecosystem resources. He is the inaugural Director of Food Innovation and Chair of Plant Conservation Biology at the University of Adelaide, and acting director of the Environment Institute. 
  
• Shannon Evenden, a science communicator with a range of experience in conservation management across industry and government. Shannon is currently working as the Project Lead for Dynamic State and the Environment Institute. 
  
  

The panel will be facilitated by Vicki-Jo Russel. Vicki-Jo has been a driving force in biodiversity conservation in South Australia for over twenty-five years, initiating and influencing a range of significant programs, plans and policies over that time. She is currently the Nature Festival Chair amongst other roles such as the Revegetation Services Manager for Trees for Life. 

“How do we create a safe home for South Australia” is part of a series of conversations held during the Nature Festival exploring the nature in our home of South Australia. These conversations are held by multi-disciplinary key players to discuss what is currently happening, barriers to solutions in South Australia and opportunities at the community, industry and state level. 

This series of events was formed from a partnership between Nature Festival, the State Library, the Environment Institute at the University of Adelaide and Dynamic State.  The funding that is made from these events will all be donated to a cause relating to each conversation.