During February and March of 2021, the Royal Societies of Australia in partnership with Inspiring Victoria presented an online symposium in three parts titled Stewardship of Country. These presentations aimed to elevate a broad range of perspectives, generating discussion on landscape and environmental management that bridges Indigenous, agricultural, scientific, economic, and social perspectives, with support for practical action and the public good.
Eleven presentations were delivered across multiple domains of land management practice and scholarly expertise, representing a historic collaboration between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander experts, industry practitioners and thinkers, and convened under the auspices of the Royal Societies of Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales, with support from the CSIRO. Of these eleven presentations, six were submitted for publication and now comprise a Special Issue of the Proceeding of the Royal Society of Victoria, which is now online and available at no cost.
These papers are well worth reading and, in the words of Dr Nelson Quinn of the Law Futures Centre of Griffith University:
‘We do not need to wait until everyone has accepted and understood the obligation of custodianship or until all our laws and institutions are reformed. We can act now, collectively and individually. Every small change we make adds to all the others — forming, eventually, big changes. We can act collaboratively, immediately magnifying the changes any one of us can make.’