There is a moment, just before we act, where the ocean is already speaking.
Australia’s Strategy for Nature speaks of connection, care, and shared knowledge. These are not new directions, they are old knowledges, carried in practice long before they were written into policy. They live in the hands of those who have always worked with Country and Sea Country, not as managers, but as relatives within a living system (C. Marshall, personal communication, 2025); Rose, 1996).
This conference workshop brings together Indigenous leaders, marine scientists, social scientists, and practitioners to move these principles from words into action. At its core is a simple but powerful understanding: ocean health is shaped not only by ecological processes, but by human relationships, how we take, how we share, and how we decide (Ostrom, 1990).To operationalise Australia’s Strategy for Nature, we must look beyond frameworks and ask: what governs the way we relate to the ocean, and who holds that authority (Berkes, 2012)?
The questions guiding this work are not technical alone. They are relational. What does marine conservation and governance become when it is grounded in cultural respect and equity? How do we protect biodiversity while sustaining the livelihoods, identities, and responsibilities of fishing communities? How do we ensure Indigenous leadership is not positioned at the margins, as consultation, but recognised at the centre, as agenda-setting, grounded in law, kinship, and lived authority?
Working through real-world contexts fisheries, marine conservation, and climate adaptation, this symposium creates a space where Indigenous science, marine science, and social science are brought into relationship. Not layered one upon another, but woven together. Here, knowledge is not extracted or translated in isolation; it is held, shared, and applied through responsibility. It is in these intersections that new pathways emerge. Where policy begins to align with practice, and where governance begins to reflect the systems it seeks to sustain.
Across these conversations, a shift becomes visible. From managing nature to relating with it. From fragmented decision-making to shared responsibility. Indigenous leadership does not simply contribute knowledge; it offers a governance framework. One grounded in listening law, where decisions are shaped through respect, responsibility, reciprocity, and relationship; an understanding that humans are part of, not separate from, the ocean system.
This conference workshop invites participants to step into that space of listening. To recognise that delivering on Australia’s Strategy for Nature is not only about protecting biodiversity, its about restoring the relationships that make protection possible. Recognising the future of our oceans will not be secured through management alone, it will be carried forward through how we choose to listen, and how we choose to act together.
References:
Berkes, F. (2012). Sacred ecology (3rd ed.). Routledge.
Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge University Press.
Rose, D. B. (1996). Nourishing terrains: Australian Aboriginal views of landscape and wilderness. Australian Heritage Commission.