The Honourable Bob Carr worked as a journalist for ABC Radio and The Bulletin before entering politics. He served as Minister for Planning and Environment 1984 - 1988 and Minister for Heritage 1986 to 1988 and was Leader of the Opposition from 1988 until his election as Premier of New South Wales in 1995. He retired from politics in 2005 after 10 years as Premier – the longest continuous term served by any Premier in NSW history. Amongst his achievements was the creation of more than 350 new national parks in NSW. Bob has received wide international recognition including the Fulbright Distinguished Fellow Award Scholarship and World Conservation Union International Parks Merit Award. He has served on the International Climate Change Taskforce and as Honorary Scholar of the Australian American Leadership Dialogue. He is also Chair of the Climate Institute Advisory Council; Chair of the Board of the Asbestos Diseases Research Foundation; and a member of the India Council for Sustainable Development.

Peter Cochrane was appointed Director of National Parks in October 1999 and reappointed in October 2002 and again in November 2005. Two of his priorities have been building relationships with traditional owners of jointly managed parks, and improving agency corporate governance, accountability and transparency. Peter has worked for the oil and gas industry on national environment and competition policy issues and as an adviser to two federal Ministers on environment and natural resources issues. He has a background in field ecology and eco-physiology of native plants. Peter has a Masters degree in Public Policy and a Bachelor of Science.

Malcolm Douglas is an outback adventurer, filmmaker, crocodile farmer and conservationist. For more than 40 years, Malcolm has delivered a message of survival, conservation and understanding of the natural world. Often referred to as the original crocodile hunter, Malcolm now uses his efforts to save the saltwater crocodile from extinction, with more crocodiles at his commercial crocodile farm in Broome than the whole of the Kimberley. Malcolm’s crocodile farm is in the grounds of one of his other dreams that has come to fruition through typical hard work - the Wildlife Wilderness Park that gives visitors the chance to appreciate many Australian animals, some with an uncertain future. Malcolm is involved with campaigning to keep the Kimberley as a vast pristine wilderness area. He is very concerned about the huge LNG plants that are planned for the Kimberley coast. Over the next ten years Malcolm will devote time to having a section of the west Kimberley coast and its hinterland gazetted on the World Heritage list. He intends to make his first public statement on this important project at the conference. He is also a patron of the Dingo Conservation Society.

Dr Paul F J Eagles is a Professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada. He is a biologist and planner, specialising in environmental planning and with a strong emphasis on the planning and management of parks and protected areas. Over the last 20 years, he has undertaken international work in nature-based tourism and park tourism, with experience in more than 25 countries. Since 1996, he has been the Chair of the Task Force on Tourism and Protected Areas for the World Commission on Protected Areas of the World Conservation Union based in Switzerland. Professor Eagles co-authored the book, Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas: Guidelines for Planning and Management (2002), with Stephen McCool of the USA and Chris Haynes of Australia. This was co-published by the World Conservation Union, the World Tourism Organisation and the United Nations Environment Program as a contribution to the UN Year of Ecotourism. Also in 2002, Paul (with Stephen McCool), published Tourism in National Parks and Protected Areas: Planning and Management. In April 2007, Tourism and Protected Areas: Benefits beyond Boundaries was released. This was coedited with Robyn Bushell of Australia.

Penelope Figgis AO is Vice Chair for Australia and New Zealand of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas. She is also Chair of the Parklands Advisory Committee, board member of the Parklands Foundation and the People and Parks Foundation, member of the Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Advisory Council and a Visiting Fellow at the Graduate School of the Environment, Macquarie University. Penelope has been a senior member of the Australian environment movement for nearly 30 years. A political scientist by training, she was national lobbyist with the Australian Conservation Foundation in the early eighties and later Council member and Vice President for seventeen years. Her key expertise is in biodiversity conservation, protected area policy and sustainable tourism. In 1994 she was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her services to conservation and the environment, in 2003 was awarded the Centenary Medal for outstanding contribution to the environment and on Australia Day 2006 was awarded an Officer in the Order of Australia (AO) for service to the environment, nature conservation and sustainable tourism.

Dr Tom Hatton is Director, Water for a Healthy Country Flagship and is responsible for the management and delivery of science to address one of Australia’s biggest challenges - the sustainable management of our water resources. Prior to this appointment , Tom was Deputy Chief of CSIRO’s Land and Water Division. He has 25 years research experience, nationally and internationally, in a broad range of land and water related disciplines including forest productivity, ecology, bushfire science, ecohydrology, water allocation, salinity and catchment hydrology. Tom has made significant advances in the understanding of ecosystem dependence on groundwater, and the management and future of our salinising landscapes. He has wide-ranging expertise in building and managing multi disciplinary research teams to solve scientific and water resource management issues.

Chris Haynes’ became involved with protected areas in 1978 when he joined the then, Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service as a project officer with responsibility for the development of the (not yet declared) Kakadu National Park. He was selected on the strength of his experience in working with Aboriginal people, having previously worked as a forester in South Australia and the Northern Territory, especially with traditionally oriented Aboriginal people in Arnhemland. He was the first Kakadu park manager in 1979 with responsibility for the development of Kakadu, Uluru and other protected areas, before becoming the first Director of National Parks in the new Department of Conservation and Land Management in WA in 1985. Director there until 1994, he then assumed responsibility for the department’s regional services. Chris retired in 1997 but continued to work as a consultant on land management and protected area issues. He returned to work as park manager of a now very much expanded Kakadu in 2002. After retiring (yet again) he returned to academic study and is currently completing a doctorate on joint management of Kakadu.

Associate Professor Pierre Horwitz currently works at Edith Cowan University. Pierre’s research experience covers the ecology of wetlands and rivers, environmental policy (in the areas of forests and wetlands), matters of science and trust in government processes, with a particular interest in history of land and water use in Australia and the relationships between human health and the health of their surrounding ecosystems. The author of numerous books, papers and reports for government and industry, he is currently a coeditor of the international journal EcoHealth. In 1994, Dr Horwitz discovered a new genus of frog (the sunset frog) in the peatlands of southwestern Australia. He also successfully nominated the Tasmanian giant freshwater crayfish for formal recognition as threatened under the Commonwealth’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, this species being the first invertebrate in Australia to receive that dubious honour.

Richard Muirhead is the Chief Executive Officer of Tourism Western Australia. Richard joined the WA Public Sector in 1987, bringing with him some 14 years of private sector experience in market research and marketing, including in his own company. He originally joined the (then) WA Technology & Industry Development Authority (TIDA) as the Director of the Marketing Division. Apart from two years in London (1990-1991) as Director of Trade and Investment of the Western Australian European Office, he remained with the Department in its various guises as Executive Director of Trade and Industry Development until 1997. In mid-1997 he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the WA Department of Commerce & Trade, the State’s premier industry and trade development agency - a post he held until May 2001, when he left to head up Tourism Western Australia.

Jenny Pickworth is a commercial lawyer with broad experience in the health industry. She has worked in the private legal sector and as a consultant to the Minister for Health and the Department of Health. Currently Jenny is working as a consultant to the State’s Health Reform Implementation Taskforce and to the Department of Health and the Metropolitan Health Service on a range of diverse projects, including implementation of the State’s Mental Health Strategy 2004 -2007. She is a member of the board of Beyond Blue Ltd, the National Depression Initiative and was Deputy Chair to the Hon Jeff Kennett for Beyond Blue’s initial five year funded term from 2000 to 2006. Jenny was recently appointed chair of a joint Ministerial Taskforce looking at appropriate education and training for the WA Health workforce for the future.

Chris Tallentire was appointed Director of the Conservation Council of WA in March 2004 and has been with the Council since 2001. He was formerly a senior environmental officer with the Water and Rivers Commission and Department of Environmental Protection. After working in Europe for 10 years, Chris returned to work as WA’s Cool Communities facilitator using innovative community projects and policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Chris believes the unique natural heritage of Australia is our greatest treasure, and that a full understanding of our natural environment is critical to the development of a well founded national identity. Chris has been committed to the Stop The Toad campaign since March 2005, when he presented at the Kununurra cane toad forum. Here he learnt of the scale of the ecological threat posed by toads, and of the potential for WA to take action and keep the state toad free. In response to the Kununurra forum the Conservation Council of WA held a forum in Perth, which was attended by over 300 people.

Graeme Worboys has over 34 years’ protected area management experience and is Vice Chair (Mountains Biome) for the IUCN (The World Conservation Union) World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA). He has worked as a ranger, park superintendent, regional manager and executive director with the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service and as a protected area management consultant. Graeme is working for WCPA on connectivity conservation internationally in Australia and in 2007 he was appointed by the NSW Government as a member of its Environmental Trust subcommittee for the Alps to Atherton connectivity conservation initiative.

Dr David Wood is Executive Dean of Humanities at Curtin University of Technology.  Recent positions held at Curtin University include Deputy Executive Dean of Humanities, Director of International programs and Dean of Research and Creative Production.  David holds senior positions on the State Government’s peak planning boards including: Chair of the State’s Coastal Planning and Coordination Council and the Ningaloo Sustainable Development Committee; Commissioner of the Western Australian Planning Commission; and member of the Steering Committee for the Western Australian State of the Environment Report.
David’s primary research interest is sustainable tourism in remote regions and its impact on local and regional development.  David recently embarked on a three year, $3million, National CSIRO/Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre research project examining the socio-economic impacts of tourism to Ningaloo.

Imogen Zethoven AO, coordinates The Wilderness Society’s national campaign to prevent the expansion of a nuclear industry in Australia and to promote safe solutions to climate change. She previously worked for WWF, the global conservation organisation. Based in Berlin, Imogen led WWF’s global climate change campaign, PowerSwitch!, and in Brisbane she ran WWF’s Great Barrier Reef campaign which resulted in the world’s largest network of highly protected areas in the marine environment. Imogen has worked for a number of environment non government organisations, including as Coordinator of the Queensland Conservation Council for five years and as a policy analyst with the ACF. She also worked as a political advisor at the Federal level. In 2006, Imogen was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for service to conservation and the environment. In 2004, she was a co-recipient of the Fred M Packard International Parks Merit Award at the World Conservation Congress, with the Hon Virginia Chadwick, Chair of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.