My major, big-sky interest is finding solutions for personal and planetary health. When I think about the future, this is it, this is what I care about and where I see that I can make a difference.

Where I came from, and where I’ve arrived

I grew up on Myola Station, a sheep station in the sun-drenched and colour-streaked saltbush country of the Barngarla people, South Australia. This lifestyle has been everything to my formation and my love of the Outback is deep and immutable.

After spending eight years as an industrial electrician - what I call my ‘eight gap years’ - I decided to study ecology at The University of Adelaide. Initially, this decision was as much about repaying the Earth for the natural joys of my boyhood as it was a drive to find more meaningful work.

However, over time I’ve come to realise that what really drives me to help improve the state of the Earth is the dire need to reconnect it to its people.

We need to understand that we are nature. That we’re a walking ecosystem of bacteria, worms, and all sorts of little creatures in and on a human ‘mountain’. We’re in a co-dependent relationship with them, so much so that our health hinges on how well they’re doing. And the ecosystem that we are gets its integrity from the health of the greater ecosystems that we walk through.

We need to continue moving towards ecological agriculture, a marrying of the old ways and the new, ecological empathy with modern technology. If we want to have a hope of a fruitful and joyous future for humanity and Earth’s many other species then we need to move away from the industrial model installed by the dubious ‘green’ revolution. It’s a model that is ageing quickly, or at least, ageing us.

And we need to support indigenous peoples across the globe to heal their lands and cultures from the tyranny of colonialism. We desperately need to relearn from them the ‘call of the wild’, to rediscover our long-lost indigeneity in principle, if not place, and start to feel that deep connection to country once again. We can’t forget about us, the people, in our mad mission to regenerate and conserve. We are the Earth and our needs are its needs - we just need to remember what our needs really are.

I’m currently writing my PhD thesis investigating the influence of native vegetation on urban soil microbiota and the human microbiome. I’m also beginning to investigate soil biology under regenerative agriculture in Australia. In the future, when I’m back at the old sheep station, I plan to research regenerative ecological and agricultural practices while working on a regenerative culture to help heal the morbid wound of the Australian indigenous / non-indigenous connection.

Always looking for co-pilots.