Susan Orgill
Dr Susan Orgill has worked for NSW DPI (Wagga Wagga Agricultural Research Institute) in soil research and extension since 2005. Susan’s research focuses on management strategies to increase carbon and nutrient cycling in agricultural soil. Susan's work in the NSW rangelands highlights the main drivers of organic matter cycling in the rangelands and the impacts this has on soil health and production in these extensive low rainfall landscapes. Susan works closely with producers and farming systems groups to achieve sustainable and profitable agricultural systems through soil management, and she is passionate about teaching producers about soil health.
Sean Starling
Sean Starling is General Manager – Research, Development and Innovation. A member of Meat & Livestock Australia’s executive team, Sean is responsible for MLA’s $170 million annual R&D investment across the Australian red meat industry value chain. Innovation areas cover: global innovation insights; value chain innovation; food safety and industry traceability and integrity systems; product development and value-adding; automation technology; and building industry innovation capability.
Sean has been engaged in food value chains for most of his career. Having worked in a range of organisations and positions from factory engineer to general manager in manufacturing, R&D and engineering organisations, underpins Sean’s ability to work with business and scientific thinkers to facilitate delivery of their concepts into commercial reality. In addition to ensuring no good opportunity is wasted, Sean has a passion of supporting young people to strive and deliver in an ever changing and complex environment.
Simon Griffith
Simon is an animal ecologist and over a career that started in Europe (Universities of Leicester, Uppsala and Oxford), and more recently in Australia (UNSW and Macquarie University), he has investigated the behavioural strategies that have evolved to allow animals to thrive in different environments. To date he has published over 160 scientific papers from this research and been supported by multiple Discovery grants from the Australian Research Council, and two prestigious Research Fellowships. For the past 14 years Simon has led a team of researchers studying birds at Fowlers Gap, and has recently started to apply the knowledge from that work towards a better understanding of rangeland sheep.
Greg Sawyer
Greg’s professional career within the wool industry spans over 25 years and he has been with Australian Wool Network now for over 9 years in various roles. During the past 7 years, Greg as a wool and sheep specialist has seen him working with both grassland and rangeland sheep producers to increase productivity and genetic gain through sheep selection and wool marketing.
As a wool and sheep industry professional with over 25 years’ experience with current commercial knowledge in animal reproduction and genetics, Greg is able to critically analyse farming systems within national and global contexts. Along with specialist education and training in sustainable agriculture and agricultural business management, he has developed a scientific understanding of farming systems along with sound knowledge to the management of agricultural production systems.
Outside if AWN, Greg is a shareholder and director of a grazing orientated pastoral company that has over the past 10 years enhance its in Merino Sheep and Angus Cattle breeding operations spaning over 8000 ac of leased country near Braidwood NSW. This business provides to him and his family an opportunity to continue being land managers with a triple bottom line approach to that company’s business model.
Greg has the support of AWN and is currently undertaking a Master of Philosophy research trial from the Western Sydney University. His research is looking into the effects of thermal stress on reproduction capacity and subsequent epigenetic effects in merino sheep. Having recently completed 2 years of this study, it is expected that his research will provide new science to understanding better the influence of stress in reproductive wastage. As supporters of this research, it shows to clients and staff that AWN is committed to enhancing the industry outcomes and developing its staff to realise their full potential. It is expected that this research will flow onto PhD in the near future.
As an enthusiastic, flexible and result-focused wool and sheep specialist at AWN and scientific livestock researcher, Greg's skills have been recognised by the Australian sheep and wool industry as well as in 2016 by Near East and North Africa region for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (UNFAO). Greg was asked by the UNFAO to engage with their senior staff and develop the framework to assist in the proposed development of wool processing facility and training nomadic herdsman in shearing skills and wool preparation within the region.
Simon Molesworth
A Judge of the Land and Environment Court of NSW, Simon is recognised nationally and internationally for his work in environmental law. Simon was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 1995. A Vice Chancellor’s Professorial Fellow at Monash University since 2013, he was previously an Adjunct Professor with La Trobe University’s La Trobe Institute for Social & Environmental Sustainability. He was a founder & president for a decade of the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand, the peak institute of practitioners whose core professional discipline is environmental management. He was foundation chairman of the International National Trusts Organisation (“INTO”) for a decade to September 2015. INTO is the co-ordinated voice for National Trusts and like heritage organisations with some six million members and tens of millions supporters worldwide. He’s led INTO’s work on climate change, and been INTO’s Head of Delegation to successive UNFCCC COP conferences. He was awarded the Australian Environmental Law Award for being a person who has "made an outstanding contribution to the development and understanding of environmental law in Australia". Appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for his “services to the community in the field of conservation and the environment in particular through the National Trust” and awarded the Victorian State Environment Award in recognition of his “significant contribution to environment protection in Victoria”. Awarded the Centenary Medal “For service to the community through heritage and the environment”. In 2012 he became an Officer of the Order of Australia for “distinguished service to conservation and the environment, to heritage preservation at national and international levels, to the professions and natural resource sectors, and to community health organisations”.
Emily Berry
Emily Berry is a social researcher at the University of New South Wales and University of Sydney. Recent research projects have explored cultural land management and facilitating landholder collaboration for landscape-scale conservation and sustainable production. Emily also works in policy at the Office of Environment and Heritage.
Greg Curran
Greg Curran is a public veterinarian and epidemiologist, based in Broken Hill. He has worked in arid areas throughout his professional life, first in northern South Australia and since in western NSW. On Fowlers Gap, Greg investigated its high flock reproductive rate, as well as certain diseases in macropods: viral chorio-retinitis and later epidemic die-off of macropods, a disease whose cause is still unknown. The central determining role of the extreme and variable nature of climate in diseases of both livestock and wildlife led Greg to study the patterns in rainfall and temperature, and more recently, the effects of heat stress on animal reproduction and disease.
Greg has worked for the South Australian Department of Agriculture, in the Bovine Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Eradication Campaign, and for NSW Department of Agriculture, now Department of Primary Industries. Currently he has established a private practice: “Animal and Climate Investigations”, focussing on livestock reproductive shortfalls and diseases, continuing to determine the causes of certain diseases of unknown aetiology (such as Paroo Staggers and Humpyback in sheep, 3D in cattle, and epidemic die-off of macropods), and understanding the nature and patterning of climate in arid area and their effects.
Danila Marini
Danila graduated from The University of Adelaide in 2013 with a B. Animal Science and first class honours. She then commenced a PhD looking at self-medication methods in sheep at the University of New England in conjunction with the CSIRO in Armidale. Danila is interested in the learning capabilities of livestock and how to develop training protocols that could allow them to have control over their welfare, such as through self-medication, as well as gaining insight to their affective state. Danila is currently working on training sheep to use a virtual fence and examining how that may affect sheep welfare.
Angus Whyte
Angus lives at Wyndham Stn on the Anabranch River NSW, with his wife Kelly and son Mitchell (currently at boarding school). They run 2 properties with mainly sheep (80%), though some cattle, covering 31,000ha and employing another family. As well as being part of the farm business Angus is regional chair of SAMRC and Chair of the Southern Community Advisory Group (LLS Western) just to name a couple of roles in the community that he loves.
Western Landcare Youth Network
The Western Landcare Youth Network is an annual program aimed at providing young people with a platform to explore a future in agriculture and the environment with access to skills training in these fields. The Network allows Far West youth to connect with each other and make a difference to their communities under the guidance and assistance of mentors. Students also make a difference to their communities by developing local environmental projects that they carry out. These three areas of activity form the core of the network; learn, develop, contribute.
Peter Sharp
Peter’s research over twenty five years has consistently been about the visual exploration and understanding of how nature works and fits together through the lens of abstraction. His art covers a wide range of media including painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking and video. Peter coordinates the BA Fine Arts annual field trips to Fowlers Gap Research Station, which has seen 650 students draw, paint and experience the area’s unique landscape over the past 25 years. The students work on preliminary sketches and undertake research which is then developed into a public exhibition on their return to Sydney.
Peter’s work is held in many significant public and private collections including the National Gallery of Australia, The Holmes a Court Collection, Artbank, The Macquarie Group Collection, New England Regional Art Museum, St Vincent's Hospital, Sports & Entertainment LTD and private collections in Australia, United Kingdom and overseas.
Anika Molesworth
Anika splits her life between her family’s arid outback sheep station in Far Western NSW, her PhD crop trials in Griffith NSW, and lush green rice paddies in Southeast Asia working as a researcher in international agricultural development.
She was awarded the 2015 Young Farmer of the Year, 2017 NSW Finalist for Young Australian of the Year, and most recently the NSW Young Achiever Award for Environment and Sustainability.
Anika is a passionate advocate for sustainable farming, environmental conservation and climate change action. She helped founding Farmers for Climate Action, and connects landmanagers to researchers through her platform Climate Wise Agriculture in order to build resilience into farming communities. She is also keenly interested in the conservation of natural and cultural heritage in farming communities and manages the International National Trusts Organisation’s Sustainable Farms program.
Keith Leggett
Keith is the Director of UNSW’s Fowlers Gap Research Station, located in Far West NSW. His field of research includes arid zone studies, mammal behaviour and ecology. He is also Australia's only African elephant ecologist and started his research career as a marine chemist.
Dr Susan Orgill has worked for NSW DPI (Wagga Wagga Agricultural Research Institute) in soil research and extension since 2005. Susan’s research focuses on management strategies to increase carbon and nutrient cycling in agricultural soil. Susan's work in the NSW rangelands highlights the main drivers of organic matter cycling in the rangelands and the impacts this has on soil health and production in these extensive low rainfall landscapes. Susan works closely with producers and farming systems groups to achieve sustainable and profitable agricultural systems through soil management, and she is passionate about teaching producers about soil health.
Sean Starling
Sean Starling is General Manager – Research, Development and Innovation. A member of Meat & Livestock Australia’s executive team, Sean is responsible for MLA’s $170 million annual R&D investment across the Australian red meat industry value chain. Innovation areas cover: global innovation insights; value chain innovation; food safety and industry traceability and integrity systems; product development and value-adding; automation technology; and building industry innovation capability.
Sean has been engaged in food value chains for most of his career. Having worked in a range of organisations and positions from factory engineer to general manager in manufacturing, R&D and engineering organisations, underpins Sean’s ability to work with business and scientific thinkers to facilitate delivery of their concepts into commercial reality. In addition to ensuring no good opportunity is wasted, Sean has a passion of supporting young people to strive and deliver in an ever changing and complex environment.
Simon Griffith
Simon is an animal ecologist and over a career that started in Europe (Universities of Leicester, Uppsala and Oxford), and more recently in Australia (UNSW and Macquarie University), he has investigated the behavioural strategies that have evolved to allow animals to thrive in different environments. To date he has published over 160 scientific papers from this research and been supported by multiple Discovery grants from the Australian Research Council, and two prestigious Research Fellowships. For the past 14 years Simon has led a team of researchers studying birds at Fowlers Gap, and has recently started to apply the knowledge from that work towards a better understanding of rangeland sheep.
Greg Sawyer
Greg’s professional career within the wool industry spans over 25 years and he has been with Australian Wool Network now for over 9 years in various roles. During the past 7 years, Greg as a wool and sheep specialist has seen him working with both grassland and rangeland sheep producers to increase productivity and genetic gain through sheep selection and wool marketing.
As a wool and sheep industry professional with over 25 years’ experience with current commercial knowledge in animal reproduction and genetics, Greg is able to critically analyse farming systems within national and global contexts. Along with specialist education and training in sustainable agriculture and agricultural business management, he has developed a scientific understanding of farming systems along with sound knowledge to the management of agricultural production systems.
Outside if AWN, Greg is a shareholder and director of a grazing orientated pastoral company that has over the past 10 years enhance its in Merino Sheep and Angus Cattle breeding operations spaning over 8000 ac of leased country near Braidwood NSW. This business provides to him and his family an opportunity to continue being land managers with a triple bottom line approach to that company’s business model.
Greg has the support of AWN and is currently undertaking a Master of Philosophy research trial from the Western Sydney University. His research is looking into the effects of thermal stress on reproduction capacity and subsequent epigenetic effects in merino sheep. Having recently completed 2 years of this study, it is expected that his research will provide new science to understanding better the influence of stress in reproductive wastage. As supporters of this research, it shows to clients and staff that AWN is committed to enhancing the industry outcomes and developing its staff to realise their full potential. It is expected that this research will flow onto PhD in the near future.
As an enthusiastic, flexible and result-focused wool and sheep specialist at AWN and scientific livestock researcher, Greg's skills have been recognised by the Australian sheep and wool industry as well as in 2016 by Near East and North Africa region for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (UNFAO). Greg was asked by the UNFAO to engage with their senior staff and develop the framework to assist in the proposed development of wool processing facility and training nomadic herdsman in shearing skills and wool preparation within the region.
Simon Molesworth
A Judge of the Land and Environment Court of NSW, Simon is recognised nationally and internationally for his work in environmental law. Simon was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 1995. A Vice Chancellor’s Professorial Fellow at Monash University since 2013, he was previously an Adjunct Professor with La Trobe University’s La Trobe Institute for Social & Environmental Sustainability. He was a founder & president for a decade of the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand, the peak institute of practitioners whose core professional discipline is environmental management. He was foundation chairman of the International National Trusts Organisation (“INTO”) for a decade to September 2015. INTO is the co-ordinated voice for National Trusts and like heritage organisations with some six million members and tens of millions supporters worldwide. He’s led INTO’s work on climate change, and been INTO’s Head of Delegation to successive UNFCCC COP conferences. He was awarded the Australian Environmental Law Award for being a person who has "made an outstanding contribution to the development and understanding of environmental law in Australia". Appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for his “services to the community in the field of conservation and the environment in particular through the National Trust” and awarded the Victorian State Environment Award in recognition of his “significant contribution to environment protection in Victoria”. Awarded the Centenary Medal “For service to the community through heritage and the environment”. In 2012 he became an Officer of the Order of Australia for “distinguished service to conservation and the environment, to heritage preservation at national and international levels, to the professions and natural resource sectors, and to community health organisations”.
Emily Berry
Emily Berry is a social researcher at the University of New South Wales and University of Sydney. Recent research projects have explored cultural land management and facilitating landholder collaboration for landscape-scale conservation and sustainable production. Emily also works in policy at the Office of Environment and Heritage.
Greg Curran
Greg Curran is a public veterinarian and epidemiologist, based in Broken Hill. He has worked in arid areas throughout his professional life, first in northern South Australia and since in western NSW. On Fowlers Gap, Greg investigated its high flock reproductive rate, as well as certain diseases in macropods: viral chorio-retinitis and later epidemic die-off of macropods, a disease whose cause is still unknown. The central determining role of the extreme and variable nature of climate in diseases of both livestock and wildlife led Greg to study the patterns in rainfall and temperature, and more recently, the effects of heat stress on animal reproduction and disease.
Greg has worked for the South Australian Department of Agriculture, in the Bovine Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Eradication Campaign, and for NSW Department of Agriculture, now Department of Primary Industries. Currently he has established a private practice: “Animal and Climate Investigations”, focussing on livestock reproductive shortfalls and diseases, continuing to determine the causes of certain diseases of unknown aetiology (such as Paroo Staggers and Humpyback in sheep, 3D in cattle, and epidemic die-off of macropods), and understanding the nature and patterning of climate in arid area and their effects.
Danila Marini
Danila graduated from The University of Adelaide in 2013 with a B. Animal Science and first class honours. She then commenced a PhD looking at self-medication methods in sheep at the University of New England in conjunction with the CSIRO in Armidale. Danila is interested in the learning capabilities of livestock and how to develop training protocols that could allow them to have control over their welfare, such as through self-medication, as well as gaining insight to their affective state. Danila is currently working on training sheep to use a virtual fence and examining how that may affect sheep welfare.
Angus Whyte
Angus lives at Wyndham Stn on the Anabranch River NSW, with his wife Kelly and son Mitchell (currently at boarding school). They run 2 properties with mainly sheep (80%), though some cattle, covering 31,000ha and employing another family. As well as being part of the farm business Angus is regional chair of SAMRC and Chair of the Southern Community Advisory Group (LLS Western) just to name a couple of roles in the community that he loves.
Western Landcare Youth Network
The Western Landcare Youth Network is an annual program aimed at providing young people with a platform to explore a future in agriculture and the environment with access to skills training in these fields. The Network allows Far West youth to connect with each other and make a difference to their communities under the guidance and assistance of mentors. Students also make a difference to their communities by developing local environmental projects that they carry out. These three areas of activity form the core of the network; learn, develop, contribute.
Peter Sharp
Peter’s research over twenty five years has consistently been about the visual exploration and understanding of how nature works and fits together through the lens of abstraction. His art covers a wide range of media including painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking and video. Peter coordinates the BA Fine Arts annual field trips to Fowlers Gap Research Station, which has seen 650 students draw, paint and experience the area’s unique landscape over the past 25 years. The students work on preliminary sketches and undertake research which is then developed into a public exhibition on their return to Sydney.
Peter’s work is held in many significant public and private collections including the National Gallery of Australia, The Holmes a Court Collection, Artbank, The Macquarie Group Collection, New England Regional Art Museum, St Vincent's Hospital, Sports & Entertainment LTD and private collections in Australia, United Kingdom and overseas.
Anika Molesworth
Anika splits her life between her family’s arid outback sheep station in Far Western NSW, her PhD crop trials in Griffith NSW, and lush green rice paddies in Southeast Asia working as a researcher in international agricultural development.
She was awarded the 2015 Young Farmer of the Year, 2017 NSW Finalist for Young Australian of the Year, and most recently the NSW Young Achiever Award for Environment and Sustainability.
Anika is a passionate advocate for sustainable farming, environmental conservation and climate change action. She helped founding Farmers for Climate Action, and connects landmanagers to researchers through her platform Climate Wise Agriculture in order to build resilience into farming communities. She is also keenly interested in the conservation of natural and cultural heritage in farming communities and manages the International National Trusts Organisation’s Sustainable Farms program.
Keith Leggett
Keith is the Director of UNSW’s Fowlers Gap Research Station, located in Far West NSW. His field of research includes arid zone studies, mammal behaviour and ecology. He is also Australia's only African elephant ecologist and started his research career as a marine chemist.