As human beings, our lives are made possible by the rich diversity of plants and animals that we share this planet with. This theme explores the complex interrelationships between human communities and the natural world. In a time of escalating biodiversity loss, it champions the value of both biological and cultural diversity.
We aim to:
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This project will integrate intergenerational community knowledge on the timing and extent of flowering in native trees to better understand seasonal flowering patterns. It is co-funded with the Faculty of Science.
The project will convene a qualitative, deliberative, and collaborative co-design workshop with key stakeholders鈥攊ncluding researchers, apiarists, government agencies, and forestry representatives鈥攖o inform future research capable of capturing diverse forms of knowledge beyond traditional scientific studies. This work will support biodiversity, community wellbeing, the apiary and timber industries, and efforts to mitigate viral emergence from bats.
Contributors: (Faculty of Science); Dr Rohan Simkin (Faculty of Science); Dr Jianni Tien (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences); (Faculty of Science).
This project will explore the use of coral stress imagery鈥攑articularly fluorescent shifts and bleaching trajectories鈥攁s ecological indicators, decision-making evidence, and forms of ethical testimony. It aims to transform how reef collapse is understood and governed by combining archival and new imagery. Working with marine scientists, augmented reality (AR) experts, and justice scholars, the project will co-interpret these signals into policy-ready visual evidence and immersive communication tools.
Contributors: Professor Maria Byrne (Faculty of Science); Professor Danielle Celermajer (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences); Dr Shawna Foo (Faculty of Science); Dr Luke Hespanhol (School of Architecture, Design and Planning); Professor Eduardo Velloso (Faculty of Engineering); Dr Brandon Syiem (Faculty of Engineering); Professor Jakelin Troy (DVC-ISS); and Professor Anya Salih (UTS).
The Biodiversity Challenge Pilot Project was launched to听advance biodiversity monitoring across Australia by 2030听using innovative, non-invasive technologies such as remote听sensor networks (cameras, eDNA) and acoustic arrays.听Initiated by , the Biodiversity Challenge听is a collaboration between SOLES (School of Life and听Environmental Sciences) and Engineering, and the eDNA team from the University of Canberra, with funding from SEI and听SOLES. The project aims to develop effective, reproducible,听and cost-efficient approaches to biodiversity assessment by:
鈥 Developing and testing scalable, non-invasive remote听sensor networks and acoustic arrays.
鈥 Collecting biodiversity data from pastures, crops, and听remnant patches of natural vegetation to assess ecosystem听variation across farming landscapes.
鈥 Focusing on natural capital, specifically mammals, birds,听and invertebrates that persist in agricultural environments.
In May 2024, this pilot project characterised the biodiversity听at L鈥橪ara (The University of Sydney鈥檚 farm at Narrabri). Using a听combination of airborne eDNA, drone surveys, camera traps,听and acoustic monitoring, the team ended up with 197,489听findings representing 744 species across a 20km2听area.听
Working with collaborators at Amazon Web Services, the听team are developing an interactive interface that permits听landholders to visualise this massive volume of data.听The next phase will involve strengthening industry relationships,听particularly in agriculture and mining, to support large-scale pilot听assessments and determining how to quantify airborne eDNA.听The goal of the project is to develop scalable solutions for听biodiversity assessment. Only in its infancy the Biodiversity听Challenge Pilot Project lays the foundation for future听conservation initiatives, sustainable land management听strategies, and industry collaborations, contributing to a听more resilient and Nature Positive future.
Living on the Edge: Caring for Australia鈥檚 Threatened Places听is a multi-year collaborative project that explores the relationships of Australian communities with threatened ecological communities and landscapes. This project considers what these places are like, why they matter and how we can protect and regenerate them.
The project brings together cultural researchers, writers, curators, traditional custodians and artists, as well as policymakers, scientists and community conservationists, to share knowledge and explore ideas. Ultimately, it aims to open up a broad public dialogue on these important topics through a series of public events, broadcasts, publications, exhibitions, and the development of learning resources.
This project is being developed by the National Museum of Australia (through the James O Fairfax Senior Fellow in Culture and Environment Program) and the Sydney Environment Institute at the University of Sydney, and is led by Kirsten Wehner (NMA), Cameron Muir (NMA), and Thom van Dooren (SEI). The project webpage is听.
SEI Contributors:听Professor
Buildings take a toll on the environment by contributing to biodiversity loss, land use and deforestation. The Living Planet Report has estimated that buildings are responsible for 29% of ecological impacts globally. Current nature-related metrics do not provide a consolidated approach for assessing the biodiversity impacts of buildings.听
This project addresses urban biodiversity loss by developing a novel biodiversity impact assessment framework for buildings, focusing on the University of Sydney campus as a case study. The research will lead to an enhanced capacity to integrate and assess nature protection into an ecological framework, to act as the backbone of developing and measuring nature-positive buildings.
This project is supported by SEI鈥檚 2025 Collaborative Grants Scheme.
颁辞苍迟谤颈产耻迟辞谤蝉:听顿谤 , ,听顿谤 ,听顿谤 ,听Associate Professor ,听笔谤辞蹿别蝉蝉辞谤 ,听Associate Professor 听补苍诲听笔谤辞蹿别蝉蝉辞谤 .
This project explores听the use of AI capabilities to create an evidence base for future projects, by evaluating the biodiversity commitments of existing renewable energy projects, and assessing whether their declared biodiversity conservation efforts match their measured impact.听
Three major renewable energy projects in Australia will be used as case studies. Advanced LLMs such as GPT will be employed and fine-tuned on a curated dataset of environmental compliance and sustainability reports, including public statements, policy reports, environmental impact assessments, stakeholder surveys, and ESG reports. These offer valuable information for assessing project commitments. The findings will be compared to the projects' measured biodiversity impacts using GIS-based spatial analysis. An AI-empowered evaluation of biodiversity commitments in Australia's renewable energy projects has the potential for far-reaching implications: fostering social trust and inclusivity, driving technological innovation, and informing policy development.
This project is supported by SEI鈥檚 2025 Collaborative Grants Scheme.
颁辞苍迟谤颈产耻迟辞谤蝉:听顿谤 ,听Associate Professor 听补苍诲听顿谤 .
Community-based watershed and waterway management is key to achieving transformational shifts from extractive river management practices to policies that can support the mutual and intersecting health of ecologies, cultures, and communities.听
This project aims to develop a unique knowledge creation cycle that integrates art, science, and ancient knowledges. The project aims to bring together Aboriginal Elders and First Nations researchers; scholars from geosciences / waterways sciences, health sciences, critical sociology and the health humanities; and partner organisations.The upcoming arts-based River Country project will hold rounds of creatively-driven discussion \to co-create and explore this knowledge cycle. The collaborative and multidisiplinary team will explore how to use this knowledge creation process to discover new ways of addressing the complex cultural, ecological, health, and multi-species challenges facing Australian Inland Rivers.
This project is supported by SEI鈥檚 2025 Collaborative Grants Scheme.
Contributors:听Associate Professor 听补苍诲听顿谤
Grounded in the interdisciplinary environmental humanities, the work of the Unworlding Collaboratory centres on places and patterns of unravelling in which human and nonhuman lives, ways of life, temporalities, landscapes, and ultimately worlds, are brought to an end: from extinction, extraction, and climate transformation, to ongoing processes of colonisation, militarisation, globalisation, heteropatriarchy, corporate occupation, and more.
听
For more, visit:听https://www.unworlding.net/
颁辞苍迟谤颈产耻迟辞谤蝉:听顿谤 ,听顿谤 ,听笔谤辞蹿别蝉蝉辞谤
This project builds collaborative links between the Sydney Environment Institute and the School of Humanities at the University of Sydney and colleagues in Multidisciplinary Environmental Studies in the Humanities (MESH) at the University of Cologne.
The project is funded by a Humboldt Research Award, which is made听made annually to internationally leading researchers whose 鈥渇undamental discoveries, new theories or findings听have had a lasting effect on their discipline beyond their immediate research area and who are expected, moreover, to continue producing outstanding research in the future.鈥澨
Contributors:听Professor
Building on the methods and concepts of the emerging environmental humanities, this project will produce a new conceptual vocabulary for a world in which multispecies conflict and coexistence is increasingly important. It brings critical and generative rereadings of classical political thought and contemporary biopolitical and cosmopolitical approaches into dialogue with a set of empirical case studies emerging from novel encounters between humans and other animals. This project will expand Australia鈥檚 knowledge base and research capacity in the interdisciplinary environmental humanities and stake out new approaches to the question of living together in a changing environment
This is a Discovery project funded by the Australian Research Council.
Contributors:听Associate Professor ,听Associate Professor
Other contributors include, Associate Professor Robert Briggs,听顿谤 Matthew Chrulew,听顿谤 Jacqueline Dalziell, Associate Professor Dominique Lestel.
This project investigates the regulations and environmental history of听the Botany Wetlands, a 4.5 km corridor of degraded freshwater wetlands and native woodland habitats in Sydney's inner east.
The researchers hypothesise that complex regulations enforce an environmental narrative that may not represent the Botany Wetlands of the past.
Their goal is to offer authorities with a roadmap for the sustainable management and restoration of the wetlands, which filter stormwater runoff, accommodate floodwater, benefit human health, and host rare and endangered ecological communities.
This project is supported by听SEI鈥檚 2024 Collaborative Grants Scheme.
Contributors:听Associate Professor ,听顿谤 ,听笔谤辞蹿别蝉蝉辞谤
What happens when we think about worlds beyond the boundaries of dominant scientific frameworks, including biology? Alongside matter, what role do immaterial, sacred, ghostly, or non-secular beings play?
An听interdisciplinary symposium听contributed to these conversations as part of the听.
Project lead:听Dr
Using the lens of co-stewardship, this project will bring together local Wiradyuri Elders, Landcare and Local Land Services in the Riverina to share stories of stewardship and sense of place, to map out these stories, and to have open conservations around practical and imagined ways of deepening community engagement for environmental regeneration on public and private lands. It will address; the need to protect, enhance and regenerate the environment; enable Indigenous governance of natural resources; and protect and activate culturally significant sites - these needs are inescapably intertwined. The project will focus on:
This project is supported by听SEI鈥檚 2023 Collaborative Grants Scheme.
颁辞苍迟谤颈产耻迟辞谤蝉:听顿谤 ,听Associate Professor ,听Katie Moore
Cross, R. 2023, 'Finding the resonance between farming stewardship and First Nations Custodianship, Institute of Australian Geographers', 4-7听July, Curtin University, Western Au
Wildlife exists all around us - in our backyards, on our balconies, in parks and disused industrial areas. If we pay attention, these creatures are an invitation into an entire world of growth and decay - of communication and sensation going on right under our noses.鈥疶his project brings design, research, digital and environmental humanities and life sciences together, with a focus on community nature storytelling. We鈥檙e co-authoring a book and producing a range of other interesting things.鈥
Contributors:听Associate Professor ,听笔谤辞蹿别蝉蝉辞谤
Other contributors include John Martin, Zo毛 Sadokierski and Andrew Burrell.鈥
Native to the continent, targeted as pest, and exploited for their meat and hide, kangaroos occupy a unique yet conflictual position in Australian social and ecological imaginaries. Contestations over this interspecies relation emerge strongly in the context of kangaroo culling, conservation and consumption, and their divergent ethical, economic and environmental dimensions. Culling seeks to limit the impacts of kangaroo over-abundance on the rural ecosystems upon which farmers鈥 livelihoods depend. In its commercial form, kangaroo harvesting provides an arguably more environmentally friendly and ethical alternative to livestock rearing. This reasoning, however, is challenged by scientists and animal welfare activists who advocate the protection of kangaroos from harm and exploitation.听
This project aims to uncover the diverse perceptions, knowledges and practices shaping kangaroo-human relations in Australia, and to produce inter-disciplinary knowledge towards more equitable human-wildlife futures. Its aims are:听
This is an ARC听Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) funded project.
颁辞苍迟谤颈产耻迟辞谤蝉:听顿谤
Related research outputs:
, 27 - 29th June 2023.
, SHE Research Podcast (Season 4, Episode 4).
Using the lens of co-stewardship, this project will bring together local Wiradyuri Elders, Landcare and Local Land Services in the Riverina to share stories of stewardship and sense of place, to map out these stories, and to have open conservations around practical and imagined ways of deepening community engagement for environmental regeneration on public and private lands. It will address; the need to protect, enhance and regenerate the environment; enable Indigenous governance of natural resources; and protect and activate culturally significant sites - these needs are inescapably intertwined. The project will focus on:
This project is supported by听SEI鈥檚 2023 Collaborative Grants Scheme.
Contributors:听Dr Rebecca Cross,听Associate Professor Rosanne Quinnell,听Katie Moore
Cross, R. 2023, 'Finding the resonance between farming stewardship and First Nations Custodianship, Institute of Australian Geographers', 4-7听July, Curtin University, Western Australia.
For millions of years sharks have swum through native waters, and dating back to Aboriginal carvings, sharks have represented a threat in the human imaginary. The recent opposition to shark culling in Australia represents a leading tip of the international 鈥淪ave the Shark鈥 movement. This project aims to devise long-term public education tools and policy options to redefine the human-shark relationship in Australia. The project will:
This project is supported by听SEI鈥檚 2023 Collaborative Grants Scheme.
Wildlife exists all around us - in our backyards, on our balconies, in parks and disused industrial areas. If we pay attention, these creatures are an invitation into an entire world of growth and decay - of communication and sensation going on right under our noses.鈥疶his project brings design, research, digital and environmental humanities and life sciences together, with a focus on community nature storytelling. We鈥檙e co-authoring a book and producing a range of other interesting things.鈥
Contributors:听Associate Professor Thom van Dooren,听Professor Dieter Hochuli
Other contributors include John Martin, Zo毛 Sadokierski and Andrew Burrell.鈥
Lively discussions are taking place about cities as multispecies environments across multiple disciplines. Moving on from modern conceptions of cities as 鈥榰nnatural鈥 environments, there has been growing interest in cities as habitats for plants and animals as well as humans. The challenge posed by this research is conceptual and political. How should the planning, development, maintenance and use of cities shift, based on recognition that many species call them home?鈥
This project is a collaboration between an urban geographer (Geosciences) and an urban ecologist (School of Life and Environmental Sciences) which will document and analyse the role of historical urban infrastructure spaces as urban ecological biotopes. These infrastructures have accidentally performed a vital role as urban animal and plant habitats. In this project we ask: what can the political ecology of historical urban infrastructures teach us about planning multispecies cities?鈥
Focusing on active and abandoned railway corridors and water storage and distribution infrastructures, this project will document the animal and plant species that have found homes in the city thanks to the fencing of these infrastructures and analyse the implications of these ecologies for the planning and management of existing and future urban infrastructure.鈥
This project is supported by听听scheme.
Contributors:听Professor Kurt Iveson,听Professor Dieter Hochuli
Grounded in ethnographic and philosophical literatures and approaches, this project explores the social and ethical dimensions of a growing field of biological research that seeks to achieve conservation outcomes by altering animal behaviours in domains that range from predation and migration to reproduction. Thom van Dooren asks how scientists, diverse animals, and local human communities are adaptively learning to relate to one another, to make sense of one another, and hopefully to survive with one another.鈥
This project is funded by The University of Sydney (SOAR Prize 2022-23)鈥
Contributors:听Associate Professor Thom van Dooren
Animals live fascinating lives. They do so, however, in their own particular ways. Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in animal stories of different kinds. Stories about real and imaginary animals abound in art, in children鈥檚 and adult literature, in form of television documentaries and across social media.
The arts, humanities, and social sciences have responded to this ubiquity of animal stories with a new interest in the challenges and possibilities of telling animal stories. Across this work is a central preoccupation with questions of鈥痬eaning. In some cases, this takes the form of an exploration of how particular animals make sense of their worlds: how they understand and interact with changing environments.
In other contexts, the focus is on the diverse cultural and historical ways in which people attach meaning to animals and their lives - from the reading of auguries in animal movements or entrails to shifting ideas about animal rearing and welfare. These stories have made it clear that animal stories鈥痬atter, and that we craft our own lives and our human identities out of them.
Contributors:听Associate Professor Thom van Dooren,听Professor Julia Kindt
Related research outputs:
-听.听(See media coverage of the book听.)
We live in an era of troubled food systems. Climate change and increasing climate variability and extremes are affecting agricultural productivity, food production and natural resources, with detrimental impacts on food systems and rural livelihoods. Against this backdrop, this interdisciplinary project examines the poetics and politics of hunger among Indigenous West Papuan communities whose traditional foodways are threatened by large-scale deforestation and industrial agribusiness expansion. Pushing against the sanitized language of 鈥渇ood insecurity鈥 in policy and biomedical discourse, the project focuses on hunger as a lived, sensory experience, imbued with contested moral, political, and affective significance for those subjected to its deleterious effects. Weaving Indigenous theories of metabolic (in)justice with insights from anthropology, phenomenology, the environmental humanities, cultural theory, food studies, and Science and Technology Studies, the project seeks to reframe hunger as a multiple, more-than-human, modality of being 鈥 one that is no less bioculturally shaped than food or eating.听
Contributors:听Dr Sophie Chao
Related research outputs:
Chao, Sophie. 2023. 鈥.鈥 Sydney Business听Insights. 30 August.听
Chao, Sophie. 2022. 鈥淕astrocolonialism: The Intersections of Race, Food, and Development in West Papua.鈥澨The听International Journal of Human Rights听26(5): 811鈥832.
Chao, Sophie. 2021. 鈥淓ating and Being Eaten: The Meanings of Hunger among Marind.鈥澨Medical Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies in Health and Illness听40(7): 682鈥697.
. Available听online.
Large-scale plantations are a major driver of deforestation and climate change. Often established by governments and corporations in the name of economic development and food and fuel security, industrial monocrops have been connected to the displacement and dispossession of Indigenous Peoples and other local communities who rely directly on the environment for their livelihoods and subsistence, and also to racialized labor regimes that have historically undergirded the plantation regime. This interdisciplinary, collaborative project examines how life and death unfold in spaces of transition between bioculturally diverse forest environments and industrialized plantation landscapes in the tropics. It considers how the spatio-temporal epoch of the Plantationocene reconfigures more-than-human entanglements, transforms inter-human relations, and alternately enables or undermines multispecies futures. In doing so, the project seeks to situate the plantation against processes of colonial racial capitalism past and present, and to highlight the force of the plantation and attendant modes of resistance and resurgence in shaping contemporary politics and the pursuit of justice.
Contributors:听Dr Sophie Chao
Related research outputs:听
Chao, Sophie 2024. "Beyond the Anthropocene: We must rethink our epoch." IAI 高清福利片. Available听.
Chao, Sophie 2023. 鈥淓pisode 21: Kate Brelje Interviews Sophie Chao.鈥澨Networking with Plants in the Anthropocene.听1 December. Available听.听
Chao, Sophie et al 2023. 鈥溾澨The Journal of Peasant Studies. 10 July.
Chao, Sophie 2023. "."听Inside Higher Ed. 26 June.
Chao, Sophie 2023. 鈥溾澨Aeon.听23 May.听
Chao, Sophie. 2022. 鈥淧lantation.鈥澨Environmental Humanities听14(2): 361鈥366.
Chao, Sophie. 2022. 鈥 (Un)Worlding the Plantationocene: Extraction, Extinction, Emergence.鈥澨eTropic: electronic journal of studies in the tropics听21(1): 165鈥191.
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Email:听sei.info@sydney.edu.au
Donations:听adrian.sanchez@sydney.edu.au
Events team:听sei.events@sydney.edu.au
