Welcome everyone to 100 Climate Conversations and thank you for joining us. Today is number 39 of 100 conversations happening every Friday. The series presents 100 visionary Australians that are taking positive action to respond to the most critical issue of our time, climate change. We are recording live today in the Boiler Hall of the Powerhouse museum. Before it was home to the museum, it was the Ultimo Power Station. Built in 1899 it supplied coal powered electricity to Sydney’s tram system into the 1960s. In the context of this architectural artefact, we shift our focus forward to the innovations of the net zero revolution.

Before we begin and on behalf of the Powerhouse, I’d like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the ancestral homelands upon which the museum is situated. The Gadigal People of the Eora Nation and pay my respects to their Elders, past and present. I would also like to welcome any First Nations people listening in or joining today and pay my respects to their Elders.

My name is Yaara Bou Melhem, I’m a journalist and documentary film director, and I often make public interest films at the intersection of art and science. Sitting next to me is Cheyne Flanagan. Cheyne Flanagan is the head of the Wild Koala Breeding Program and former clinical director at the Koala Hospital in Port Macquarie. As populations dwindle due to deforestation and worsening environmental conditions, Cheyne is leading a team of staff dedicated to helping these incredible animals persevere. We’re so thrilled to have her join us today. Please join me in welcoming Cheyne. So, Cheyne, you’re incredibly passionate about the conservation of wildlife. When did that sensibility for caring for animals start for you?

Well, it started when I was a little girl, when we used to – I grew up in Sydney and we used to pick up beaded dragons and carry them around on their shoulders as little kids. I went for horses and got involved in horses. And when I was working with horses on the Northern Beaches, I often came across pythons. And I wanted a python, but my mother wouldn’t let me. So, it just started from there and ever since it’s just been animals, animals, animals.

Now you’re a trained biologist and you worked as a herpetologist for many years. Tell me how you transitioned into working for the Koala Hospital?

Well, it’s perfectly normal to go from snakes to koalas. I think if you’re an animal person, animals are animals. Doesn’t matter what they are. And it wasn’t anything romantic. It was literally a job advertised at the Koala Hospital. Before that, I had a travelling reptile show, and the cost of insurance was so high that it was just too high to keep going. And then the job came up at the Koala Hospital and away it went. And I had worked with koalas in a zoo for a few years beforehand. And they are just magic animals to work with. I’ve always had a passion for them and they are just fabulous.

So, you’ve been with the Koala Hospital for 23 years, is that correct?

This is my 23rd year.

And you’ve just recently taken up management of the Koala Breeding Program, which we’ll explore in detail a little bit later. But you were the director of clinical services for over 20 years at the hospital. Take us through what sort of work that role entailed and what an average day looks like if there is such a thing –

No there’s no such thing. Well, of course we admit and treat wild koalas. Occasionally we take koalas from zoos, but most of them are wild and they came from anywhere across New South Wales, but most of them were focused on the coastal area of the mid-north coast. So, a member of the public could see a koala and they’d ring and say, look, this koala got diseased eyes or something’s wrong or it’s been hit by a car. So, we have trained rescuers who are on roster. They go out and get the koala, bring it in. And then in our clinic, we would then examine and treat the koala and deal with its injuries. And we’ve got a very big team. We’ve got 250 volunteers and nine paid staff, and everyone is passionate. Every single person there is an animal person and passionate about wildlife and conservation. And cumulative there’s just an amazing amount of knowledge and experience in that place.

So, that wasn’t – every day was admitting, dealing with and examining and treating koala patients. But there was also a lot of work in meeting with governments both local, state and federal, sitting on boards, trying to change legislation. We also do a lot of training and it’s one of my jobs is to train and so train in New South Wales and training in South Australia and Victoria. We’ve also got a very big search and rescue team for fires. So, we go all over the place for that as well. 2009 fires in Victoria, we were down there, we’ve been all over New South Wales doing fire work we’re everywhere.

Let’s talk about koalas. Australia is home to so many unique species of wildlife and I don’t want to favour one over the other. But let’s face it, koalas are iconic and when people think of Australian wildlife, koalas are up there in the top three. But there’s also something about koalas that we connect with on a psychological level perhaps, and you have some really interesting observations about why this is the case. Can you walk us through that?

Well, it’s a gut thing with people. Often, they’ll look at a koala and go, oh, isn’t it gorgeous. And they don’t realise why. And what it is – because when we were kids, everyone had a fluffy toy, everyone had that cuddly teddy. And so, you think of a koala with its fluffy years and its fluffy face, its forward-facing eyes, it’s just like a teddy. And an adult koala sitting in front of you is about the same size as an 18 month old toddler sitting down. So, what a human sees is an 18 month old toddler, something cute and cuddly from their childhood, and I just want to pick it up and squeeze it. And that’s not a good idea.

It’s not a good idea.

They’re a wild animal. They’re no different to anything else. And koalas don’t take kindly to being handled and touched.

Tell us about where koalas sit as a threatened species. What is their current status and how large is the population?

Koalas in New South Wales, Queensland and the ACT are currently listed as endangered, and we say shame on Australia for koalas even getting to the stage of being endangered. Bear in mind that it’s not just koalas we’re protecting, all the other animals that live in the same ecosystem as the koala. For example, the greater glider, the yellow-bellied glider, ringtail possums and brushtail possums and flying foxes. And they live in the same ecosystem. So, we lose koalas, we lose all of them as well.

Why is that?

Well, because they live in the same habitat. And if we keep losing that habitat at the rate we are, they go too. And bear in mind, flying foxes are the biggest pollinators of eucalypts in Australia. We can’t lose them. So, we’re protecting all these other animals as well as koalas. So, to have them on the endangered list is terrible, but it still doesn’t completely protect them. It puts more layers when people want to do development. It slows things down a bit. But it’s not until a species becomes critically endangered before everything shuts down from a development point of view.

And we’re talking here in terms of legislation.

That’s correct. Legislation. Legislation to protect wildlife in this country is very poor. It is improving, but it’s got a long, long way to go. The New South Wales Government and the Federal Government have got these koala strategies that are happening at the moment and we’re doing some work there as well. It’s wonderful that this is happening and it’s about time, but we’ve got a long way to go yet.

So, koalas are currently listed as endangered. Are they at risk of becoming critically endangered?

Yes, 100 per cent. Without a doubt. With the climate changing, of course, which is what we’re talking about, and if we get more heat events and fire events like we’ve had, probably all the koalas you’ll see is in zoos if we don’t do something serious. We’ve got to stop removing habitat and we’ve got to conserve what we’ve got. We’ve got to replant. You know, it’s a wonderful thing to have all that vegetation out there. It’s green space. It’s the lungs of the earth. And we’re just ripping it up so much, and it makes us cry. It really does.

How does climate change exacerbate the already established threat to koala populations?

There’s two examples of that that are quite profound. In the Pilliga, the Pilliga State Forest, which is near Coonabarabran and the Warrumbungle areas, in the late 90s and around 2000, there was estimated to be around 10,000 koalas occupying this area. And with all the drought and the continual heat events that have happened, they’re gone. There’s no koalas left in the Pilliga. Koalas just don’t cope with heat, again, no different to us. We have a preferred body temperature range we like to sit within and so do koalas. And once that temperature goes, say, above 32 to 35 degrees, koalas start to struggle. And they’ve got some strategies in play where they change their behavior and sit back, or they’ll hug smooth bark trees to cool down.

But if it gets too hot, they have to come to ground, and they’ll hide in rock outcrops or in tree hollows. And when koalas are really hot, they don’t eat. They just – we don’t either when we’re hot, you know, they just don’t want to eat at all. And if they don’t eat, they’re not getting moisture because most of their daily moisture needs come from the eucalypt leaves themselves. So, if they’re not eating, they become dehydrated. And when they become dehydrated, if this becomes chronic dehydration, they end up in renal failure. So, you have these koalas dying from heat events and drought where they just slowly, their metabolism it just doesn’t cope. And that’s probably what drove the loss of the koalas in the Pilliga.

In the Gunnedah region of the Liverpool Plains, there used to be a really, really big population of koalas. They estimated probably in about 2007, about 10,000 koalas plus. In 2009 there was a massive heat event in the Gunnedah region, and they estimated about 40 per cent of the koalas died in this heat event. Massive. We’re talking 45-degree heat and of course a long continual drought. So, when these koalas are also then compromised from being hot and chronically dehydrated, now chlamydia is really taking hold of the Gunnedah population. And from what was a thriving, magnificent population, they’re dwindling to the point there’s not going to be any left very soon.

So, climate change and heat events are not doing koalas any favors at all. And people think because they’re a wild animal and they live in the bush, that they can cope with heat. No, they don’t. They don’t cope with heat at all. And koalas like to live along river courses and things like that where it’s cooler, but it’s still unbelievably hot. So, if we keep having heat events, we’re going to really knock the current population’s around as well.

It would be great if you could tell us more about the Koala Hospital because I believe it’s the first wildlife hospital in Australia and it’s also more than just a hospital for koalas. Could you give us a sense of when it was founded and what kind of things it does?

The hospital started in 1973 and that, of course, makes us the first Koala Hospital, and when you think about it, in the world, I mean, they wouldn’t be anywhere else. And it was started by a couple called Max and Jean Starr, who have sadly passed away now. But they saw some koalas in Port Macquarie because development was happening, and they could see there was some sickness there and some injuries. So, they took them into their garage and started treating them.

There was no wildlife vets or wildlife manuals or wildlife anything in those days, nobody had a clue, and they certainly did a lot wrong. But they were pioneers and they were the ones that started it. And I knew Jean Starr very well, and she was a very quiet, gentle, sweet little lady, but she used to chain herself to bulldozers and do all sorts of things. She was just incredible, an absolute powerhouse. So, we’ve got a lot to thank for those people and what they did. And from there, from this tiny little hospital, we’ve grown into what we are today and we’re getting even bigger. So, she would be amazed to see what we’re doing now.

So, started off in someone’s garage, like many a good company does. What sort of other things does the Koala Hospital do now?

Well, we’re all about conservation, of course. That’s the priority. So, we’re purchasing land and to turn it over for conservation purposes. We do an awful lot of tree planting and restoration of habitat, and we’ve got an annual 25,000 tree giveaway on the mid-north coast, and we’ve got two tree plantations, one’s got 9000 trees on it. And we own some conservation land next door to that. And then we’ve got another plantation that’s got 1000 trees and that’s a research facility. So, the trees are very important to us. So, that’s one of our big roles as well. Plus, as I said, we do a lot of training and we’re very heavily into research, that’s our other area.

For those who might not have been, can you tell us about Port Macquarie and why it makes such a good base for the hospital to be located at?

Well, I’ve always joked that koalas would make great real estate agents and they would because where they want to live is where we live. You know, they want good soil, they want high rainfall, they want everything that we want. So, the koalas on the mid-north coast, there’s a really unusual geological area in Port Macquarie. So, it’s all volcanic soil, red rich soil and it creates really beautiful trees. That’s why the koalas are there and of course people like it too, and that’s where the clash happens. Humans and koalas together. We’re firm believers when development’s done and it’s managed properly, that koalas and humans can work and live quite easily side by side. If they manage urban environments properly, you can have them together.

And your aim is where possible, to release koalas back into the wild after you’ve brought them in and rehabilitated them. But not all koalas can be nursed back to health and are suitable for release. What happens to those koalas?

Well, under our license, if they’re non-releasable, there’s only two options and one is euthanasia and the other is to hold them in permanent care. And we have a separate licensing, so we have two licensing systems of the hospital, one is the National Parks and Wildlife Service Rehabilitation License, where you’re rehabilitating wild animals and the other one’s Department of Primary Industries Exhibitors License, which is basically a zoo license. So, some of our non-releasable patients that can cope with human presence, because not all of them can, they go on display, and they are our exhibit facility, and the public can come and see them and every one of those koalas has got a story to tell. They’re not captive animals. They are wild koalas. We don’t touch them, we don’t handle them. They just live there. And they’ve got a pretty good life, you know, two meals a day, I mean, room cleaned, everything’s done, room service, it’s a pretty, pretty cushy life for them. And they’re there for the public to come and see and learn about the plight of wild koalas. So, that’s what happens to some of them.

And do you have figures about how many you have been able to release?

We’ve got a reasonably good track record, probably around 60 per cent, which is, in comparison to some of the other places, that’s pretty good. Not in a fire situation though, that’s different, it’s usually less.

Okay, let’s talk about the fires because the plight of the koala and the work of the Koala Hospital made headlines around the world during the Black Summer bushfires of 2019 and 2020. And you weren’t just rescuing and rehabilitating koalas from affected areas, but the hospital itself was in the thick of the fires. What was that time like for you?

It was Armageddon. Bear in mind that Port Macquarie and the region, we’ve certainly been through plenty of fires. We’ve had 1994 and 2002, we had 100 koalas each time in at the hospital from the fires. And we’ve done work in our area, probably around 100 different fire grounds. So, it’s nothing new to us. But this was bigger than – well, you know, everyone in Australia knows – this was bigger than any of us have experienced. But in Port Macquarie it was actually quite weird because for three weeks we had the highest pollution levels for a city of anywhere in the world for three weeks. 3000 parts per million or something, I’ve forgotten what it was, but it was unbelievable. And you’re driving to work in the morning with the headlights on. You’re going home at 2.00 in the afternoon some days and you had your headlights on. You know, it was so dark, and it was this brown, yellow sky. It was horrible. And there were embers dropping in town everywhere, and at one point we thought the Koala Hospital itself was going to burn down. So, we had staff rostered on to stay at the hospital and go around at night with torches looking for embers to put out. So, it was a frightening period. It really was like Armageddon.

And that was in November of 2019, is that right? When you were in the thick of it?

Well, it started in July 2019, and a big fire. But the big one, the big horrible one was in November. And it was horrible. It just went everywhere, and it went right down to Taree and it went west. And then everywhere you went, there were fires. You’re driving home and there were flames coming off the highway and almost hitting your car. It was mind boggling.

And during that period, you were also trying to conduct search and rescue operations of koalas. Tell us a little bit about what that looks like.

Well, to do search and rescue on fireground, because the fireground after a fire has gone through is a really dangerous place. It’s almost worse than the fire itself in some respects because all the trees are smoldering and burning, and the big limbs are burning, and trees can fall down. Limbs can fall down. It’s really dangerous and can be quite scary. So, all our people have to undergo a rural fire service course on how to assess fire grounds. And it’s called a fire awareness course. They all have to wear full PPE, everyone’s rugged up in Proban overalls, the whole gamut. And we go in with Rural Fire Service’s permission and we go out and teams. We had 25 trained people.

You’ve got to be really fit because it can be, you know, 45 degrees out there and you’re in full fire gear and you spend your day in a line search looking for burnt koalas. And we also found other animals as well, which we had to catch. And often when koalas are burnt and they’re sitting in a tree, they’re so unwell they won’t move. You can’t climb the tree because sometimes they are alight and still smoldering. So, we had to use elevated work platforms on crawler tracks and go in and try and get the koalas. We also had scat detection dogs, which are just fantastic. These dogs are worth – one dog’s worth 10 humans in searching and they just go and you say find and the dog goes and it’ll find koala poo or can scent koala urine. And then the dog just sits at the tree, looks up and there’s the koala.

Which is genius, because I’ve actually been on one of these search and rescue operations and it’s really hard to spot a koala.

Sure is.

During this period, you sometimes had three or four media crews a day filming at the hospital. What kind of support did the hospital receive and why do you think the work that you’re doing captured the imagination of so many people from around the world?

I think because the koalas look so, I suppose to be a bit anthropomorphic, they look so sad sitting there when they’re all bandaged up, etc. And because everyone around the world loves koalas, I don’t think anyone doesn’t. And nobody wanted to see them gone. So, it frightened people worldwide. It really did. And that’s why we got – we’ve always had exposure to the media, but it was like media central at the Koala Hospital.

As well as trying to rescue, rehabilitate and treat koalas that were in the wild. You’re also instrumental in supporting koalas that remained in the bush. Tell us about how you do that and the role of wildlife watering stations.

Ah, yes. Well see that’s how our breeding program has come into being. We were so worried about all that all the wildlife was left out there because there was just no water, no free water, the creeks were dry, everything was terrible. So, we said, let’s put some wildlife watering stations out there. We knew the blinky drinkers at Gunnedah work for the koalas out there that were suffering in the drought. So, we knew they were expensive to make so, we put a GoFundMe page up for $25,000 to build some wildlife watering stations. And we went in every day and it was going up and within about a week it was $1,000,000.

We went ‘Oh gee, we’re going to be building some wildlife watering stations.’ And it just kept ticking over and over and we thought, this is ridiculous because, you know, a GoFundMe page, you have to use that money for the specific purpose you put up. And I said ‘There’s no way in the world, we’re going to build $1,000,000 worth of wildlife watering stations.’ So, I said, ‘Let’s get this breeding program that I’ve been wanting to do for 15 years.’ So, we changed the wording in the GoFundMe page to a Wild Koala Breeding Program, and it just went poof up to $8 million. And so, I said, ‘Okay, we’re going to have our Wild Koala Breeding Program.’

You received all these donations and, you know, the $8 million is now going into the wildlife breeding program. Give us a sense of what that will actually look like.

It’s about 16 kilometers from Port Macquarie. It’s in Cowarra State Forest, it’s owned by forestry, so we’re leasing the land. It’s in a beautiful, thick forested area. Down the front we will have a laboratory, clinic and a bit of a display for the public and then all the rest will be hidden from view. And that’s the Wild Koala Breeding Program. It’s actually a pilot program. We’re doing this program for the next five years under our scientific licensing. This is how we’re going to learn and understand how to do this. Because bear in mind, this has never been done before. This is a world first.

So, within five years, we’re hoping to have – or maybe 10 or I’m not sure – 90 breeding koalas at the facility. And these koalas will stay there permanently, and their offspring will then go into identified koala habitat that either has hardly any koalas living in there for whatever reason, these are all the reasons we’ve got to ascertain or unoccupied, perfectly good habitat, and we will start populations up in these areas. These are going to be sites where there’s not going to be any chance of development and they will stay – and a lot of them are national parks and those sort of places. But it’s going to involve a lot of scientific research and we’re working very closely with the Australian Museum, the Wildlife Genomics at the Australian Museum, looking at the genetics, all these koalas, the University of Sydney for all the diseases involved in koalas, and Taronga Conservation, who was our key partners actually putting together and running this whole program.

So, all the sites that we’re looking at using, we want to go out and work out why there is low numbers or why there’s no koalas. We’ve got to ascertain that first because there could be reasons why we’re not going to put koalas back in there, but it’ll all be really good koala habitat. And there’s still is quite a lot of good habitat on the mid-north coast. So, that’s the program for the next five years is to get this program happening, get it underway, iron out all the problems. And then at the end of the five years we’ll make all that data available to the New South Wales Government because there are other people that are wanting to do breeding as well. And we can say, ‘Here you are, we’ve made all the mistakes and we’ve ironed this out. You can go ahead now using the data that we will give you.’ We want to, after the five years, expand to breeding populations for up in the tablelands, for example, and increase koala numbers in other areas. That’s our goal, is to go big.

Yeah, I want to unpack that a little bit more in terms of how you select koalas for breeding, the genetics that you’re looking for, koalas from different areas. Can you walk us through that?

Well, funny you should mention that. In 2012, we worked with the Wildlife Genomics of the Australian Museum. We supplied a female koala called Pacific Chocky, which was a Port Macquarie koala who had chlamydia and unfortunately had to be euthanised. And she formed part of the two koalas that the Australian Museum used to transcribe the koala genome, an Australian first. The Americans and the Germans were hot on our heels, but Australia did it and they transcribed –

As we should have.

As we should have. And out of that, obviously they’re still learning, but they’re doing a wonderful job and they’re going to be very heavily involved in the stud book side of this breeding program. To pick out animals that we feel suitable, they’ve got to be genetically robust and genetically capable and can bolster and improve the existing populations. And I joke about, and maybe it’s possible, is that we build this koala called a drought master using all the right genetics that we can come up with.

A super koala.

A super koala. I’m dreaming, but wouldn’t it be nice to breed these animals that are more resistant to drought, etc? Because with the changing climate, the effects this is going to have not only climate wise, but potentially even changing eucalypt leaf itself. We’ve got to change things somehow.

I’d like you to elaborate a bit on that, what do you mean by changing the eucalypt leaf itself?

Well, at the University of Western Sydney, they’re doing some amazing work. And one of the things that’s still only in the research phase, that as our climate is changing and the carbon dioxide levels are increasing, eucalypts have these incredible compounds in their leaf that are toxic, and they’re there to protect them, you know, to stop them being eaten. And koalas and gliders and possums over millions of years have adapted and learnt to circumnavigate that and can eat toxic eucalypts. But if these chemical compounds in the eucalypts change with the rising levels of carbon dioxide, even koalas may not even be able to eat them.

And what about the places that you plan to release koalas to? I understand that there’s a hierarchy among koalas and creating a koala community. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Koalas have a very, very strong population dynamic and a social structure where you have higher ranking animals and lower ranking animals. And the higher ranking animals, particularly the males, they are the ones that do all the breeding. They occupy the best habitat, the high-ranking females have the better habitat. And that all makes sense because if they’re robust and beta animals, they’re the breeding stock and the high-ranking male will look after his females and in exchange for mating. And so, the lower ranking animals around the peripheral of the population.

All koalas occupy a home range, and they stay there for their lives. And it’s just like us with our house and our backyard, absolutely no different with a koala. And it’s only when they become old or some other situation happens that forces them out of that home range, that the challenge happens and some other animal moves in. So, when we release all these juveniles from this breeding facility there, we’re going to have to create this new population. So, we’ve got to really do it following how a koala social structure works. And it’s going to be quite complex, and all the koalas will be fitted with radio collars, and they will be tracked for about 6 to 12 months to make sure that they settle into their new home ranges properly. And that’s another reason why you can’t just pick a koala up and go and put him somewhere else. Now, people say that there is nice bush over there, can’t you take that koala and put it there. If you go and do that, it’s no different to you going getting into someone’s house or their backyard and saying, I’m here. That’s their place. And it’s the same with a koala. You can’t just go and dump it somewhere else because that’s another animal’s home range and that koala will get booted out straight away.

So, there’s quite a bit of work to do. And you were on the verge of retirement before you decided to take on managing this program. What made you want to dedicate yourself to such a monumental task?

This is something I’ve wanted to do for probably 15 more years. And because this is such a big thing and it’s so unique and so scientifically interesting and I just want to be right in the thick of it. I really do. I don’t want to not be involved in it. I think it’s going to be fantastic.

Now there’s a significant amount of funding for the conservation of the koala, but that’s just one species. What are the flow on effects for the wider ecosystem?

One of the main things that the public says to us all the time, ‘What koalas do, what good are they?’ You know, and I say, ‘Well, apart from just being stunningly gorgeous, every time they eat, and then they poo, of course they’re re-fertilising the soil. So, the the nutrients are continually being recycled.’ But the other really cool thing is there’s four species of mallee moths that only lay their eggs in marsupial poo, and particularly koalas and possums and these moths, the larvae that get in there and they pupate inside the koala poo, and they eat that and then they come out as larvae in the soil. And one of their jobs is to break down eucalypt leaf. It’s a very important job. And if you think of all that leaf litter that’s on the floor in a forest, these mallee moths play a major role, apart from mycorrhiza and all the other fungi that do a lot of work.

Mallee moths are critically important to the survival of eucalypts, the leaf litter and of course everything else that lives with them. So, if koalas are protected and they’re safe, so is that habitat where they are, is protected and all those other animals I just mentioned. I’ve just mentioned a few, the gliders, because the greater glider and the yellow-bellied glider are sliding into extinction themselves. Brushtail possums, well I’m sure you Sydneysiders will think differently about that, but if we’re not careful, will be in trouble with them also. Ringtail possums are doing okay, but we’ve got to be careful we don’t lose them. And of course, flying foxes as we know, they’re on the endangered list and we cannot lose flying foxes. But then all the other animals that live there as well. So koalas, they are the, I suppose, the umbrella species for everybody else. We look after koalas. We look after everything else that lives with them, including humans.

So, what are some of the ways that members of the public can get involved and help support the work of the hospital?

One of the biggest ways, of course, I know it sounds crass, but it’s money, its donations. That helps most of all because then we can use that money A, to hopefully buy land, but also just to continue the work we do. It costs a fortune to run the Koala Hospital annually. And once this breeding program gets going, it’s going to cost a hell of a lot more. So, we really need a lot of financial support. But talking to your local member is another really important thing to help tighten the legislation in the protection of koalas, tighten it heavily and to protect habitat. Plant trees yourself. And if you live in an area where you’ve got eucalypts, just clean up branches, don’t get upset about them, eucalypts are eucalypts, they drop branches. And that’s just the way it is. Don’t take the trees out, leave them there and try and plant as much as you can. Get involved with Landcare. So, there’s a lot of good work you can do to help.

Could you please all join me in thanking Cheyne for her time today? To follow the program online, you can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can also visit the 100 Climate Conversations exhibition or join us for a live recording like this one. You can go to 100climateconversations.com and just search for 100 Climate Conversations in your pod catcher of choice.

This is a significant new project for the museum and the records of these conversations will form a new climate change archive preserved for future generations in the Powerhouse collection of over 500,000 objects that tell the stories of our time. It is particularly important to First Nations peoples to preserve conversations like this, building on the oral histories and traditions of passing down our knowledges, sciences and innovations which we know allowed our Countries to thrive for tens of thousands of years.