John Blay has been described as a humble Australian bushman but what exactly is an Australian bushman?

The word can conjure many things such as hardiness and doggedness. 

Ned Kelly was described as a fine bushman. Malcom Douglas also springs to mind, the crocodile hunter and film maker. So does the name Robyn Davidson, an author and bush woman who famously trekked the deserts of Western Australia with camels and what about ‘The Bush Tucker Man’ Les Hiddins who inspired my own adventures in Cape York.

Born in Parramatta in 1944, the bushman that we are speaking with today is also a naturalist, a philosopher, a playwright, a poet and a critically acclaimed author of numerous books including Trek Through Back Country; On Track: Searching out the Bundian Way; and Wild Nature: walking Australia’s south east forests.

John’s writing has been described as bringing together human and physical landscape with historical influences. 

In 1981 his journey as a bushman truly began when he spent 12 months in the Deua and Wadbilliga National Parks with a sometimes stubborn mule called Zac and since then has never stopped exploring Australia’s Southern Forests. 

Working closely with the local Aboriginal people, John re-discovered The Bundian Way, an ancient Aboriginal pathway from the sea at Twofold Bay to Mount Kosciuszko, a pathway that is many thousands of years old.

Amongst many accolades John has also discovered a new species of acacia that is aptly called Blay’s Wattle. 

Join us for this enchanting discussion that was recorded at John’s home in Eden NSW overlooking Twofold Bay and hear about John’s fascinating stories of solitude, discovery, indigenous heritage and the wild horses of Kosciuszko National Park. 

The Anthropocene, rapid population growth, improved standard of living in developing countries, ever expanding agriculture and inefficient use of water is causing rapid change to water management across the world due to the increased demand for fresh water.

1 in 3 people that live on planet earth live without a household water connection and 800 million people lack access to safe water.

Climate change is increasing the odds there will be an increase in severe drought in many parts of World and this year scientists referred to the drought in the US as the worst drought in 1,200 years’. 

In Australia we are already experiencing the impacts of a changing climate, particularly changes associated with increases in temperature, frequency and intensity of heatwaves, severe weather events, intense fires and drought conditions.

Something is not right. 

Can technology save us? 

The desalination of saltwater is an example of a technocentric solution and there are now an estimated 20,000 desalination plants world-wide. In Australia there are 26 desalination plants with another several in the pipeline.

The rapid growth of desalination plants comes with much uncertainty and the water industry looks to become a major contributor to climate change via the significant energy usage required to operate desalination plants and the associated pollution.

The growing concern and uncertainty about the environmental impacts of desalination plants means it is critical that we continue to question if ‘desalination is the genuine and unique technological solution’ to the water crisis in the Anthropocene.

As the famous German sociologist Ulrich Beck once asked, what could be the ‘unintended consequences of these technological fixes’?

Join us for this insightful discussion with the preeminent and globally renowned water expert Professor Stuart Khan from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and learn about desalination, storm water harvesting, dams (including his thoughts on raising the Warragamba Dam wall), technocracy and the policy process in times of water crisis. 

In the year 1800, a little over 200 years ago, there were 1 billion people on Earth. Today there are 7.7 billion people and by 2100 there will be close to 11 billion people on Earth.

How are we going to feed everyone? What exactly is aquaculture and what does it have to do with the global population?

Aquaculture is the farming of aquatic organisms including fish, molluscs, crustaceans and aquatic plants. Even farming pearls, crocodiles and ornamental fish is classified as aquaculture. Globally, the aquaculture market is worth over $50 Billion USD and production is led by China who produces over 65 billion metric tons of aquaculture products annually and aquaculture is the fastest growing primary industry in Australia.

Driving the growth of the Australian aquaculture sector is the world demand for fisheries products that the world's commercial fisheries are increasingly unable to meet due in part to greatly depleted fish stocks and global population growth. The Australian Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment estimates the value of Australian aquaculture production is worth around $1 billion annually.

Aquaculture in Australia dates back thousands of years with evidence of an Aboriginal community farming eels in Victoria (United Nations) and Australian writers such as Bruce Pascoe have educated many of us about how first peoples have farmed, nurtured and lived in harmony with nature in Australia for millennia and another remarkable fact is that indigenous Australians used to transport yabbies between waterholes to restock impoverished waterbodies. The first true aquaculture in Australia.

The earliest commercial aquaculture products was the Sydney Rock Oyster from New South Wales in the 1870s and it is only in more recent times (since the 1960s) that farming freshwater crayfish in purpose-built dams has really commenced. 

Join us for this insightful discussion with entrepreneur and visionary Dr. Lisa Elliot, Managing Director and founder of the Australian Crayfish Hatchery, the first state-of-the-art redclaw crayfish hatchery of its kind.