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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Chontarle Bellottie - Bush Heritage Australia | Karri Karrak Aboriginal Corporation
Chontarle “Chonnie” Bellottie is from Wadandi and Pibelmun Country. She has more than 20 years’ experience in natural and cultural resource management, heritage and tourism and environmental sciences. Chontarle has extensive experience working in conservation with Traditional Owner groups. Chonnie is currently the Western Australian Aboriginal Partnership Manager at Bush Heritage Australia and supports staff to strengthen and deepen working relationships with Traditional Owner Groups to achieve the vision of a healthy Country. She is a Director of the Karri Karrak Aboriginal Corporation and one of two Western Australian representatives on the Commonwealth Committee on Aboriginal Water Interests and the state’s Aboriginal water and environment advisory committee.
Luke Bailey - South Coast NRM
Luke Bayley has over 20 years’ experience working with Government, the private sector and communities collaborating across sectors and interest groups to better care for people and country across regional and remote Australia. Luke is the current CEO of South Coast NRM. South Coast NRM work to inspire and empower people to care for nature for the benefit of future generations and for nature itself. Luke is also the Chair of Desert Blue Connect, an independent, community-based organisation specializing in woman’s health and wellness, and family domestic violence services across the Midwest.
Fraces Pollock - Wooleen Station
In the heart of the dramatic Murchison region, Wooleen Station represents the very heart and soul of Australia's outback. Covering over a quarter of a million acres of picturesque outback, Wooleen Station Stay is a cattle station that is playing a leading role in preserving and sustaining the unique ecology of the region. Frances Pollock resides at Wooleen Station in the Murchison of Western Australia. Frances is a passionate driver of responsible and sustainable tourism experiences that foster a deeper connection to country.
Charlotte Pham - Activate Tree Planting
Charlotte Pham has been volunteering for Activate for almost a decade. Her passion lies at the crossroads between environmental conservation and community engagement. She is now the chair of Activate Tree Planting Ltd, nurturing the dream to see it grow, branch out, and solidify its community of tree planters.
Noni Oldfield - Activate Tree Planting
Noni Oldfield has been involved in Activate Saplings for two years, helping to coordinate tree-planting events geared towards young people. She began studying a Master of Community Development at Murdoch University in 2023 after being inspired by the people, music and spirit of the Activate community; she is also a current board member of Trillion Trees.
Rose Scott - Activate Tree Planting
Rose Scott is part of the core crew for Activate Saplings who have worked with Activate to create youth focused tree planting festivals for the last two years. Previously she was involved in the Murdoch University environmental scene as the head of MUST, serving as the guild Sustainability Representative and taking on roles in the Murdoch Community Gardens. She was also involved with various environmental campaigns such as WAFAs anti-logging campaign, helping particularly with screenings and panels for the documentary ‘Cry of the Forests’ by Jane Hammond.
Bruce Ivers - Environmental Immersion Program | Emmanuel College
Bruce’s background is in agriculture, first as a farmer and more recently in landcare where he has 30 years’ experience. For the last 15 years he has worked with schools and community groups providing environmental immersion experiences, especially around planting seedlings. He introduces students to practical science by creating experiments for the students to plant and later use the data generated in class. He has facilitated 6,500 mainly school students planting 495,000 seedlings in the metro area and at country sites from Myalup to New Norcia to Pingelly and Katanning.
Michele Watson - The South-West Innovation Academy | Manea Senior College
Michele is an enthusiastic educator who has had extensive teaching and leadership experience in the Western Australian Education system and the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme and Diploma Programme in Germany, Ghana, Thailand and China. As an educator, she has a strong belief that fostering curiosity leads to engaged learners and states “that it is vital that we create meaningful learning opportunities for our students, by establishing curriculum and community connections, as when we connect, they thrive.” Michele is currently undertaking the leadership role at Manea Senior College of Innovation and Community Links Coordinator. With Lynette Hillier, she co-founded the South-West Innovation Academy, which empowers students to “think globally, act locally’, to work towards creating a more sustainable future for all.
Lynette Hillier - The South-West Innovation Academy | Manea Senior College
Lynette is a Biological Sciences teacher at Manea Senior College in Bunbury, with over 20 years of experience. She creates innovative and engaging biology programs that revolve around local environmental issues, making learning relevant, real, and meaningful for her students. Lynette's passion lies in connecting the curriculum to the community and industry, ensuring that her students gain valuable insights and skills. She utilizes wetland studies to explore changes in local biodiversity and initiated a blue swimmer crab monitoring program in Bunbury, empowering students to actively contribute to marine conservation. Additionally, as the co-founder of the South-West Innovation Academy, she fosters collaboration between students and industries to tackle both local and global issues, seeking impactful solutions.
Tim Jarvis - The Forktree Project | WWF | Fauna & Flora International
Environmental scientist, author, adventurer and public speaker Tim Jarvis AM is committed to finding pragmatic solutions to major environmental issues related to climate change and biodiversity loss. Having worked in sustainability for 30 years, he currently provides strategic and practical sustainability advice to a range of corporate organisations.
Known for his historically authentic recreations of the Antarctic survival journeys of Sir Douglas Mawson and Sir Ernest Shackleton, Tim is founder and leader of The Forktree Project, a native revegetation project on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula, Global Ambassador and Governor of environmental NGO WWF and a Vice President of Fauna & Flora International.
Professor Mike Dockery - Curtin Bankwest Economics Centre
Professor Alfred Michael Dockery is Principal Research Fellow with the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre, Curtin University. Mike’s research focusses on improving the labour market, education, and wellbeing outcomes for marginalised groups within society. He has published over 60 papers in national and international journals, including seminal works on the positive effects of cultural engagement and identity for Indigenous Australians. Other areas of focus include the economics of education, subjective wellbeing and ‘happiness’, and links between housing, health, and socio-economic outcomes.
Jayde Rowlands - Conservation Council of WA
Jayde is the program manager for Better Climate, a CCWA campaign advocating for Western Australia to be a global leader in climate solutions. Jayde joined CCWA earlier this year, driven by the conviction that Australia's renewable energy transition - and move towards net zero - should have communities and workers at its heart. Jayde previously worked in the resources sector and is a former political and union organizer.
Donny Imberlong - Gelganyem Corporation
Jaru man from the East Kimberley, Donny currently works for Gelganyem Seed Operation as Technical Assistant. He graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Australian Indigenous Studies, minoring in Environmental Studies. He has considerable experience in mentoring Indigenous students and is recognised as a natural leader, providing cultural education to a wide range of audiences. He is also a dedicated volunteer, both locally and internationally with a strong record of service to his community.
Louise Tarrier - Carbon Positive | Schoolyards to Forests: Urban Greening in Perth
Louise-Marlena Tarrier is the CEO of Carbon Positive Australia. She loves to empower individuals, families, and organisations to minimise their impact on the environment and is passionate about how, together, we can create a sustainable, regenerative future. Before working with Carbon Positive Australia, she worked to fund over 10 million tropical trees with UK charity TreeSisters. She believes that our values, combined with a strong business strategy, can have a huge social and environmental impact.
Raphaela Raaber - Artists for Sustainability Network WA
Raphaela Raaber is the founder of ‘Artists for Sustainability Network WA’ which seeks to empower artists to help tackle complex environmental and social issues through creative solutions. She has a background in Sustainable Development, Community Development and International Aid and has worked on inclusive sustainability projects in the Comoros Islands, New Caledonia, and Western Australia. Raphaela is currently coordinating the Climate Justice and Resilience Toolkit development at the Centre for People, Place & Planet at ECU.
Ron Bradfield
Ron is a saltwater man from Bardi, Jawi Country, north of Broome. He is a storyteller and artist who - as the son of a Stolen Generation mother - facilitates wider awareness of the Stolen Generation and how these laws across Australia are still impacting today’s Aboriginal and Islander peoples. Working within the Herbert Meyer Collection of the Carrolup child artists artworks at the John Curtin Gallery, Ron is also responsible for raising awareness of these Child Artists, their legacy and their possible connections to descendants who haven’t yet been identified. His artworks are mostly installation and sculpture based and they have addressed the hiding of himself and his culture from mainstream Australia, to better be able to survive in an Australian Society that doesn’t value his Aboriginality, Culture or Lore.
Sharyn Egan
Sharyn Egan is a Noongar woman, an accomplished fibre artist, sculptor and painter. She exhibits and leads workshops across Australia and makes public art. The themes of Sharyn's work are informed by the experiences of her life as a Noongar woman. She works in a variety of mediums including painting, sculpture and woven forms using traditional and contemporary fibres. Her woven works include traditionally styled contemporary forms and baskets, as well as sculptural forms often based on flora and fauna that has totemic significance for the Noongar people. Egan's works explore her personal and cultural relationships to Country, to Noongar Boodja. They document the relationships between places, people, plants and animals while also reminding us of our role as custodians, to care for the natural world.
'In considering different points of view of the earth, the cosmos and the oceans, we need to recognise our obligation to nurture an awareness of our impact on the earth. In Aboriginal culture, everything is connected and equal - all life comes from the same atoms. Humans are not above nature. We live alongside simultaneous beauty and devastation'. Sharyn Egan, 2020
Karen Hethey - Multidisciplinary artist
Karen Hethey is a Boorloo/Perth based independent multi-disciplinary artist, Director/Animateur, puppetry artist, intercultural spectacle performance maker and CCD consultant drawing on a professional background in puppetry arts, spectacle performance, environmental installation, intercultural community development, conservation, and applied Anthropology.
With 30 years’ experience collaborating with First Nations communities across remote, regional, and urban Australia and with regional and urban communities, environmental organisations, and schools she has contributed to projects that connect country, culture, language, traditional ecological knowledge, environmental science and community voice, to take action and raise awareness of critical environmental issues through vibrant meaningful spectacular performances and installations.
Karen is a guest lecturer at Murdoch University and currently co-director on the creative team collaborating with Bassendean Primary and Governor Stirling Senior School on the immersive, sensory, cross cultural, environmental installation project The Bilya Project: Ni! Derbyl Yerrigan Waangkiny "Listen! The Swan River is Speaking, which will tell stories from the river around Mandoon/Guildford/Bassendean as reimagined through the lens of young people.
Jordan Rowand - Australian Youth Climate Coalition | The Wilderness Society
Jordan Rowand is currently the national Schools Program Organiser and WA state mentor at the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC). They also work as a WA Organiser at the Wilderness Society. Jordan has a background in Global Studies and Sustainability and several years spent working in environmental and social justice groups across the continent. They feel deeply passionate about building the skills, capacity and confidence of everyday people in the fight for an equitable and sustainable future.
Jemima Williamson-Wong - Australian Youth Climate Coalition
Jemima is a Law and Sustainable Development student at Murdoch University, and the WA state coordinator for the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. Having volunteered with other climate organisations including Climate for Change and the Western Australian Forest Alliance, Jemima focuses on correctly communicating the climate crisis. Jemima is passionate about climate justice and is currently focused on building the capacity of young people to build the movement of energetic, effective, and ambitious young people in WA.