The International River Foundation is bringing together two renowned environmental experts to discuss how fire and climate change can impact waterways and their surrounding communities.
The breakfast event titled Rivers on Fire will be held at Brisbane City Hall on Thursday the 18th of March. IRF’s CEO, Eva Abal has said that raising community awareness around the plights of our river systems during these sorts of shocks is important in combatting the effects and aiding recovery.
Bradley Moggridge, is a Murri man from the Kamilaroi nation, Aboriginal water expert and PhD candidate at the University of Canberra. He will be discussing how we can learn from indigenous communities and the ways in which they have been managing fire for thousands of years across the Australian landscape.
Dr Fran Sheldon is Professor and Dean at Griffith University and a Research Member in the Australian Rivers Institute. She will be speaking about the impacts of fire and climate change on water quality. Prof Sheldon said adding so much ash and sediment into the rivers has turned them into the aquatic equivalent of “deserts”. “Most organisms can’t survive so they just disappear.”
The breakfast event is the first in the Rivers on Fire series. Following the breakfast is a 3 day conference being held in partnership with Charles Sturt University in Port Macquarie from the 3rd to the 5th of June. All proceeds from the Rivers on Fire series are being donated to Aussie Ark.
