Day 1

The Conservation Council of WA is proud to host our Annual Conference for 2023

UPLIFT: Supporting the work of youth & Aboriginal people in the conservation sector

Welcome to Country

Oral McGuire - Noongar Land Enterprise Group

Oral McGuire, Principal Consultant of Gundi Consulting, is a Whadjuk/Ballardong Nyungar man. He brings cultural knowledge of the land and forest, which has been shared by Nyungar knowledge holders and experienced by Oral throughout his life through Nyungar stories, song lines and beliefs of the flora and fauna as well as a full appreciation of Nyungar significant and sacred places and sites.

He has 18 years' experience as a professional fire-fighter and for the past 15 years has been practicing cultural burning on his 2100-acre property where he and his family are transforming the land back to its natural state – their vision is to plant 1 million trees and to create a Nyungar cultural sanctuary. This journey has placed Oral in a position where he now provides a strong Nyungar perspective on regenerative land management and healing country methodologies and practices.

Heidi Mippy - Noongar Land Enterprise Group

Heidi Mippy is a Noongar and Yamatji woman from the Southwest and Upper Gascoyne regions of WA. Heidi works at Curtin University as the Indigenous Liaison Manager with the Indigenous Stewardship, Biodiversity & Environment Group. She is also with the ARC Training Centre for Healing Country. Heidi is passionate about the healing, well-being, and cultural survival of boodjar and First Nations People.

Master of Ceremonies

Dylan Storer - Conservation Council of WA

Dylan is a youth advocate, broadcaster and environmentalist. Raised in the Kimberley, he’s committed to working to make sure that the voices of our future are not left out of our present. Dylan has worked with the ABC, Guardian Australia and was the 2021 Northern Australia Liaison to the Australian Youth Representative to the United Nations. Dylan is currently the President of UN Youth WA, Vice President of SYN Media and is the Memberships Coordinator at CCWA, where he works with our grassroots members to help build a stronger conservation sector.

Keynote

Tyronne Garstone - Kimberley Land Council

Tyronne Garstone is the Chief Executive Officer of the Kimberley Land Council, where he is committed to providing leadership and negotiating opportunities that deliver sustainable outcomes for the next generation of Aboriginal people in the Kimberley region and beyond. During his time with the Kimberley Land Council, Mr Garstone attended the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Mr Garstone is a Bardi man and has spent most of his working life within the Indigenous sector and is committed to developing genuine relationships and partnerships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people through mutual understanding, knowledge sharing and respect.

Joe Heffernan - Conservation Council WA

Joe Heffernan came on board at CCWA in December 2022, transferring from working in WA’s Kimberley region. A committed conservationist, Joe has been working in the sector since 1999 when he began his career as a field biologist in Ghana, West Africa. Following 14 years at international conservation NGO Fauna & Flora International, working mainly on Asian elephants, Joe settled in Australia. He studied law and practiced in charities and native title law until 2021 in both corporate and not-for-profit practice. Prior to his appointment at CCWA, Joe was the CEO for Balanggarra Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC in the East Kimberley region, with a focus on strategic land conservation, co-managed park planning, and youth ranger development.

Maggie Wood - Conservation Council WA

Tjaltjraak Rangers

Hayleigh and Maddie are Tjaltjraak Rangers with Esperance Tjaltjraak Native Title Aboriginal Corporation. Hayleigh is a Team Leader with Ranger experience spanning Esperance to Mandurah. As a young Ranger, Maddie brings her youthful energy and lived experience to the team. The Tjaltjraak Rangers are an active presence on the south coast of Australia. The Team empowers each other as a family unit, embedding the values of community in on-ground action. Conservation outcomes are enhanced when land and sea management teams act in the interest of community, for the well-being and sustainability of current and future generations.

Bill Kruse

Bill Kruse is employed by the Pew Charitable Trusts. He has worked on conservation, community development and Indigenous land management projects in Australia and overseas for over twenty years. He has experience with jointly managed national parks, planning Indigenous Protected Areas, as well as complex mining and pastoral stakeholder issues. He has worked for industry delivering social impact assessments, sustainability planning and reporting, and for Indigenous organisations researching native title claims and in land management. His current role with Pew has a focus on increasing and sustaining Indigenous land management in all forms across WA, and in the sector nationally.

Erica Lampropoulos - Executive Director Pollination

Erica is an Executive Director at Pollination, a climate change advisory, investment and projects firm. Pollination has partnered with three Aboriginal corporations to form the Aboriginal Clean Energy Partnership, which is developing a clean energy project in the East Kimberley. Prior to joining Pollination, Erica held roles at Fortescue Future Industries and Synergy.

Matthew Pudovskis

Matthew Pudovskis is a barrister at Francis Burt Chambers in Perth who specialises in native title, mining law, environmental law, Aboriginal cultural heritage and town planning. Matthew has experience negotiating mining agreements and Indigenous Land Use Agreements with Aboriginal corporations and native title claim groups. Matthew has a Master of Laws from the University of British Columbia (Vancouver), and a Bachelor of Laws with Honours (first class) and Bachelor of Science (Env) with Honours (first class) from the University of Western Australia.

Will Bessen - Tuna Blue Facilitation

Will has been facilitating and working with groups and teams for 13+ years. His facilitation skills are complimented by a Bachelor of Arts (Communications) from UWA and completion of the Company Directors Course with the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Will’s latest passion in the facilitation space is visual thinking, graphic recording and scribing. He’s also built digital technologies into his workshops (both face-to-face and remote) and is comfortable bringing a range of unique web-based platforms to the table. Will has zen-like patience honed over 25 years as a tragic supporter of the Fremantle Dockers football team.

Jess Beckerling - WA Forest Alliance

Jess Beckerling is a leading WA environmental campaigner and the director of the WA Forest Alliance. Jess has successfully campaigned to protect forests and wildlife and to reduce carbon emissions by building community power and capacity, and she believes in the critical combination of excellent strategy and a strong, collaborative culture.

Kyooya Designs

Kyooya Designs is a contemporary Aboriginal art business based in Perth Western Australia. We are a small family-run business. We specialise in delivering digital and hand drawn artwork, whilst also providing opportunities for community canvas workshops.

Kyooya Designs workshop at CCWA's Annual Conference will be based on the six Noongar seasons. We will be facilitating a community canvas workshop, which is designed to include everyone. A community canvas allows everyone to have an opportunity to create beautiful artwork that will contribute towards the final piece.

Oral McGuire - Noongar Land Enterprise Group

Heidi Mippy - Noongar Land Enterprise Group

Ben Cole - Wide Open Agriculture

Ben is a co-founder of Wide Open Agriculture, Australia’s leading, ASX-listed regenerative food and agriculture company. WOA’s purpose is to reinvent the way we grow, think about, and buy food to create a better future for people and the planet. Ben believes that for-profit, for-purpose organisations play a vital role in building an equitable economy and healthy planet.

Keith Pekin - Perth NRM

Keith Pekin is CEO at Perth NRM, a for-purpose organisation in the natural resource management (NRM) sector that collaborates with government, industry stakeholders and community to empower people to have a positive ecological impact.

Instrumental in establishing RegenWA - a network of farmers and industry stakeholders who are identifying and sharing evidence-based regenerative agriculture practices – Keith is also involved in establishing the natural capital accounting project, and developing a collective impact approach for ecosystem restoration that could be useful for all purpose-driven enterprises.

Mia Pepper - Nuclear Free WA

Mia Pepper first worked at CCWA in 2010 as the nuclear-free campaigner. She is now the National Director of Publish What you Pay and has served on the board of the Mineral Policy Institute since 2010. Mia is a passionate campaigner on mining and justice issues along with nuclear issues.

Keith Bradby - Gondwana Link

Keith is a long-time advocate for the ecological values of south-western Australia and for the power of local communities. He helped establish some of Australia’s earliest landcare groups, has run building, beekeeping and native seed businesses, consulted to the mining sector, worked in local enterprise development and at a policy level in government. Currently CEO of Gondwana Link, which he was part of establishing in 2002.

Kallan Nannup – Coordinator Winjan Bindjareb Boodja Rangers and Bindjareb Djilba Kaadadjan Bidi

Kallan Nannup is a proud Noongar man from Pinjarra with family ties to Yued, Gnarla Karla Boordja, Whadjuk, Ballardong & Wandandi lands & Bindjareb country. As a board member of the Winjan Aboriginal Corporation and Coordinator the Winjan Bindjareb Boodja Rangers and Bindjareb Djilba Kaadadjan Bidi (Bindjareb estuary knowledge pathway) Yarning Circle, Kallan is an emerging leader in the Bindjareb Community. With strong governance from his Elders, Kallan is focused on bringing people together, to walk together and to achieve solid outcomes for Aboriginal people on country. Kallan’s passion for the engagement, training and employment of young people through the Winjan Bindjareb Boodja Ranger program has grown from his own experiences in developing his professional painting business, SML Painting Solutions, which is 100% Aboriginal-owned and operated.

Renée Barton – Program Manager, Healthy Waterways, Peel-Harvey Catchment Council

Renée Barton is Program Manager, Healthy Waterways at Peel-Harvey Catchment Council (PHCC) and leads a team in the delivery of projects focused on the protection and restoration of the Bindjareb Djilba (Peel-Harvey estuary) and its tributary waterways. Renée has spent the majority of her professional career working as a Project Manager and Landscape Architect before shifting her focus to Natural Resource Management and joining PHCC in 2022. Renée has a Landscape Architecture bachelor degree with honors (completed 2002 at University of Western Australia) and is a Registered Landscape Architect member of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA).

Christian Miller Sabbioni - Healing Country ARC

Christian Miller-Sabbioni is a research assistant for ARC Centre Healing Country based at Curtin University. He works at the knowledge interface and is interested in the theoretical components of traditional cultural and modern scientific approaches to restoration and conservation. He is in his third year of a BA majoring in Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations at UWA.

Grace Wyeth - Healing Country ARC

I am a Yamatji Nyoongar woman with Ngarinyin connections living in Boorloo, working at the ARC Training Centre for Healing Country as an Indigenous Liaison Officer. I have a strong passion for caring for Country which lead me to study a Bachelors in Environmental Biology, with hopes to do further study looking at how to make the environmental and broader science sector more culturally appropriate, inclusive and safe. Additionally, I have a keen interest in looking at how to combine Traditional Knowledge with Western Science for healing and caring for Country.

Damon Guerinon - Healing Country ARC

Damon is a Yamatji from the Gascoyne region of Western Australia, with family connections from the Pilbara to the Southwest. He is the Centre Administrator for Healing Country and First Nations Project Coordinator at Biologic Environmental Survey (Partner Organisation of Healing Country). Damon has a background in Creative Industries and Logistics, and a passion for building connection to Country.