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by Tamara Connell

We were off to an early morning start once again, this time leaving Sydney for good and travelling south to Canberra, the nation’s capital. We began our time in Canberra by a ‘Welcome to country’ by Agnes of the Ngunnawal people. For me this connection to the Aborigines of Australia (and our car-ride discussions on the way) brought to light striking similarities between both the Australian and Canadian aboriginal policy, and their complex effects on the social and ecological sustainability of the affected communities.

After a short discussion with Agnes, we were toured The National Gallery of Australia, learning about the famous Ned Kelly as well as some of the history of Australian art. We enjoyed a delicious packed lunch in the garden - luckily a large installed mist sprayer was on hand to help cool us down in the 40 degree heat.

Despite having a rather large federal spending press announcement earlier in the morning, the Hon. Federal Member for Kingsford Smith, activist, and former Midnight Oil frontman, Mr. Peter Garrett joined us in the park for a discussion on leadership and creating positive change. It was a great pleasure to have been graced with a few moments of his time, especially under the circumstances.

Then we took a quick jaunt across town to visit the Swedish Ambassador to Australia, Mr. Sven-Olof  Petersson who welcomed us warmly with ‘fika’ in his residence. No IKEA furniture was spotted, but it was definitely nice for some of us to be ‘back in Sweden’, so to speak.

Finally, in a day filled with great leaders, we met up with Prof. Will Steffen, of the Australian National University’s Climate Institute, one of the world’s most pre-eminent climate change scientists, for a roof-top pizza party and social evening. Highlights included: a discussion on related research into ecosystem service valuation to help make decisions in trade-off situations on the way to low-carbon communities; the proposal that the climate solutions are not held back by technical problem but rather political will; and his personal motivations and approaches to maintain that motivation under some challenging statistics and prospects. For me personally, this was a real highlight of the trip so far!

By Fiona Wright

Day 3 brought me to life - I think I was in a state of vacation bliss in the sun and wind until that point, and yet couldn’t explain my sense of angst.  I thought maybe I needed to relax a bit more, to be present, but what launched me into relaxation was the first focused conversation about scaling up with The Natural Step.  These are the conversations I came here for. I reflect on the power of physically relocating to really focus down - removing yourself from your day-to-day stimulus and routines - and I think this is a key method to be noted and employed as much as is realistically possible in the future.  While 1.5 hours could barely scratch the surface of considering the most effective structures for advancing a purpose of spreading competence , commitment to sustainability using the framework, it was also an interesting exercise to identify actionable and concrete suggestions in a short period of time.  Those gut reactions that we are often afraid to voice because we haven’t thought them through can provide great food for thought and are maybe sometimes a bit less guarded, helping us to identify patterns in perceptions and thinking. 

A day that started with laughter, kayaking, and a great swim got even better as during the ferry past the Sydney opera house, a play in the surf at the beach, and tempura in the park as the conversations were now churning.  This capped off with a fascinating dialogue with Ronnie Harding who spoke with us about the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, and their formation, role and successes in bridging the gap between science, public policy and economics.

Here are key points that for me contribute clues to our question of how to scale up our impact:

• “as individual (scientists) we would’ve got slaughtered, but all of us together could stand firm”
• “you can’t just knock something together that’s gonna have an impact in just one draft, it just doesn’t work like that” (this is our 23^rd draft)
• TIMING IS EVERYTHING. To have an impact, you need to have someone who can jump at any moment. This means you need at least one person working full time to represent the group. It’s no good if an opportunity arises to speak up that all your members are busy on other work that week. You miss the opportunity. Timing is critical.
• It’s not about the number of people, it’s about finding the finding the right people
• Once you’re outside the table of your group, never criticize anyone. This makes an impenetrable wall on the outside, and a safe space on the inside.
• The Wentworth Group hasn’t bombarded people with documents - the few we’ve put out are short, and articulated. This gives them more weight.
• If you don’t have a decent monitoring system, you’ll never know how you are doing - what worked and what didn’t.
• Smaller groups help people not get swamped
• If you want to do anything, you need information.
• Adaptive management is the crux of sustainability
• For any group to know how to organize itself, you need to answer the questions: (i) Why do you want to come together, (ii) what do you want to achieve, (iii) what CAN you achieve, and (iv) how can you achieve it.

By Tamara Connell

We awoke early to eat a quick hostel breakfast and board the bus by 7:30am. Driving up to Port Stevens, many of us saw our first views of the countryside. We boarded a boat and toured the nearby waters, watching dolphins play and feed in the water. After a quick tour, we headed back south towards Newcastle to catch up with CSIRO, the Australian government’s research arm. We had a great tour of their Energy Research Centre, including a solar thermal installation. Back onto the bus, we headed over Newcastle University to the Tom Farrell Institute. Here we heard interesting presentations by Dr. Joe Herbertson of Crucible Carbon and Chris Horner of Delta Energy, a state-owned electricity provider. An interesting dialogue was held, considering some (optimistic) proposals related to the climate challenge – biochar as a carbon pump, carbon capture, and biomass co-fired coal plants.

Back onto the bus, we headed southerly towards Sydney… waylaid only slightly by the fact that we accidentally left TNS CEO David Cook at the Tom Farrell Institute. Oops hee hee… (We are travelling in two vehicles, with people swapping seats, so this is actually easier to do than it might sound.) Anyways, with our travel ‘buddies’ now firmly arranged, we were back on the road, headed for Pittwater Youth Hostel, located within the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. We were shuttled to the island in a water taxi, then hiked 10-15 minutes through the dark bushes (complete with giant spiders and wallabies) to arrive at an amazing little hostel. Our hosts welcomed us with a warm meal, which was enjoyed by all… except perhaps the possum that was continually dragged away by its tail from the table back to the bush.

Off to bed we went… after the longest day of our 10 day journey. We awoke to the beautiful sounds and scenery of the park. Breathtaking and refreshing!