Data / Science

2020 Narrm Oration

Join us for the 2020 Narrm Oration, focussing on how Indigenous people and knowledge can save Australia’s environmental and social unravelling.

Our Country, Our Way: How Indigenous people and knowledge can save Australia’s environmental and social unravelling

About this Event

Australia is in the midst of both environmental and social crises. With the highest rate of biodiversity loss on earth, the country is facing an ever-increasing barrage of massive catastrophic wildfires that wreak untold environmental damage and its First Peoples are among the most disadvantaged and disaffected demographic.

In the 2020 Narrm Oration, Associate Professor Fletcher will argue that many of Australia’s current environmental problems can be traced to the impact of British invasion and the violent and devastating effects this has had on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Embedding the Aboriginal world view and notion of Country into mainstream Australia has the potential to benefit the lives and livelihoods of all Australians and our Country.

Orator: Assoc Prof Michael-Shawn Fletcher

Associate Professor Michael-Shawn Fletcher is a Wiradjuri man, Physical Geography researcher and Assistant Dean (Indigenous), Faculty of Science at University of Melbourne. He is also Director of Research Capability at the Indigenous Knowledge Institute.

His interests are in the long-term interactions between humans, climate, disturbance and vegetation at local, regional and global scales. Professor Fletcher’s current work involves developing and integrating high-resolution palaeoenvironmental records from across the Southern Hemisphere using multiple proxies, including microfossil, charcoal, geochemical and isotopic analyses to provide comprehensive reconstructions of environmental change.