A former salmon industry chief executive, a former Rio Tinto executive, and Snowy Hydro’s community chief will tell Australia’s foresters how their own industries made their case to the public, at a Canberra symposium whose standard registration rates close on Friday 11 September. That is according to Jacquie Martin, CEO of Forestry Australia, the body representing more than 1,100 forest scientists, managers, and growers, who named the program’s headline sessions on Friday ahead of the 7 to 9 October event at the Rex Hotel.
“It’s a strong program focused on a critical issue for the future of the sector,” Martin said, calling the way forestry communicates, engages, and builds trust with the wider community “increasingly important” and the symposium a chance “to look critically at what works, what needs to change and how we can do better”.
Stan Grant opens the program on Wednesday morning with a plenary on the nature of public debate, social licence, and the media’s handling of contentious issues, the keynote Forestry Australia named when registrations opened in May. Meanwhile, Dr Simon Longstaff AO, the executive director of The Ethics Centre, will headline the Thursday program.
The names on the register run from foresters and forest scientists to growers, researchers, educators, and communications staff. The program they have booked, themed The forestry story: strategies for improved awareness, social licence and effective engagement, runs two days of plenary and breakout sessions at the Rex before a day in the field, and members who attend earn 15 CPD points.
A Wednesday afternoon plenary brings in four people who have carried the argument for salmon farming, mining, and energy: Luke Martin, a former chief executive in Tasmania’s salmon industry; Alexandra Gartmann of the Australian Farm Institute; Janina Gawler, a former Rio Tinto executive now with RST Solutions; and Snowy Hydro’s social impact and community chief Sarah Norris. The politics panel that follows puts Nichole Overall, a member of the NSW Legislative Council, alongside Alison Rudman of the Timber, Furnishing and Textiles Union and Natasa Sikman, the former Australian Forest Products Association acting chief executive who now advises Chevron on federal government affairs.
Thursday’s facilitated workshop brings communications, marketing, and engagement professionals into one room to settle on the messages the sector can share and work out how each organisation adapts them to its own brand and audience. Dr Michelle Freeman, Forestry Australia’s president, sits with Longstaff, Michael O’Connor of the Timber, Furnishing and Textiles Union, and Stephen Whiteley of the Tasmanian State Fire Commission on a morning panel on lessons from the past, then closes the two days on a panel asking where the sector takes its story next.
Friday’s five field trips all leave from and return to the Rex, and each delegate picks one, choosing between Canberra’s urban forest, the Australian National University’s research and legacy, the ACT Parks and Conservation Service on community access to its plantations, Tallaganda State Forest for native silviculture, thinning, and fire management, or a day among alpine ash and snow gums under a changing climate.
- For more information on the 2026 Forestry Australia Symposium, including rates, registration, accommodation, and field trips, visit the symposium website.
