Ep 1: w/ Prof Chris Daniels & Brenton Grear | Talking careers, rewilding, torrens, platypus

Our first Green Adelaide Podcast episode is out now!

 Your insider scoop on all things cool, green, and wild in metropolitan South Australia.

 We are launching the Green Adelaide Podcast with a bang! Our podcast host, Green Adelaide Communications Manager Melissa Martin, interviews our leaders Green Adelaide Board Presiding Member Prof Chris Daniels and Green Adelaide Director Brenton Grear.

 They chat all things from their school days, life and environmental career tips, the term rewilding and what it means for Adelaide, plus the dream of reintroducing platypus to the River Torrens / Karrawirra Pari one day soon.

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Do you want or have a career or interest in SA’s environment? This podcast is your insider enviro-exclusive about the people, projects, and news of SA.

The Green Adelaide Podcast is hosted by our Communications Manager Melissa Martin (a podcast lover, environmental communications expert and a secret red-tailed black cockatoo fan), and it is your insider scoop on all things cool, green, and wild in metropolitan South Australia.

You’ll hear from the experts, including the leaders and ecologists to the planners and marketers.

We’re not your regular environmental podcast, we’re your cool cultural podcast. How we live with our environment in Adelaide is a culture that we must talk about.

Subscribe via your favourite platform today so you'll get notified for all new episodes! We’ll publish new episodes monthly, usually at the end.

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Transcript

Chris Daniels:

That it's not as hard as people tell you it is. I think one of the things I get really frustrated with as an academic and then working in this sector in more private or government roles is how many times people say, "Don't do science, don't do environment. You'll never get a job. You'll waste your life. It's a waste of time. Keep it as a hobby, but it's not a serious profession." That's absolute rubbish.

Melissa Martin:

Welcome to the first Green Adelaide Podcast episode. It's so exciting to be here. I'm your host, Melissa Martin, and I'm the communications manager at Green Adelaide and I love podcasts and I'm an environmental expert in communications. And I have a secret, secret kind of secret love of red tail black cockatoos. Now, if you haven't heard of Green Adelaide before, I'll explain a little bit about who we are. So Green Adelaide is a statutory body and we're working towards creating a cooler, greener and wilder metropolitan Adelaide that celebrates our unique culture. We do this by delivering iconic projects, like we're doing a revamp of the western end of the river Torrens known as Breakout Creek. We fund on ground projects through our community and council grant programs. We do a lot of education, so through events, programs, and campaigns, plus more. And we help facilitate partnerships to deliver environmental outcomes.

So this podcast will cover all things about the environment in metropolitan Adelaide. And we are your insider scoop on all things cool, green and wild in metropolitan South Australia. Today this podcast is recorded on Kaurna land, so I would like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the Kaurna people, past, present and emerging. So why should you listen to our podcast? So do you have a career or an interest or do you want a career or do you want to start something in SA's environmental sector? This podcast is your insider enviro exclusive about the people, projects and news that you must know in metropolitan Adelaide. On the show, you'll hear from the experts, including the leaders and ecologists, to the planners and the marketers to learn all the ins and outs of creating a cooler, greener, wilder Adelaide now and into the future. So we're not your regular environmental podcast, we're your cool cultural podcast.

How we live with our environment in Adelaide is a culture that we must talk about. We'll launch episodes monthly, so subscribe by your favorite platform today so you get notified for all new episodes. We'll publish usually at the end of each month and let us know if you like them. Click the subscribe button for new episode alerts. For our first episode today we're starting big with the leaders of Green Adelaide. So first he leads the strategy and operations of Green Adelaide. He has a long career in land management, ecological restoration, natural resources management throughout SA. By trade he's a geographer, so that's all about the science of spatial patterns across our earth and society. He loves surfing, multi-day hikes with no showers and collecting vintage South Australian surfboards. It's the director of Green Adelaide, Brenton Grear.

Brenton Grear:

Hey, thanks, Mel. Very good. And spatial, you can see you're not a geographer.

Melissa Martin:

Oh, spatial, spatial, geez. Next, he started by studying geckos in Adelaide and then later completed his PhD in Zoology and worked in the United States. From there, he followed a career in zoology as an academic at all of SA's unis until he switched sides to SA's environmental agencies from heading up Cleveland Wildlife Park to leading the Koala Life Foundation and featuring on multiple SA boards today. He's been a teacher to plenty, writer of many publications, a media talent on ABC, and an avid Adelaide cruise supporter. We've got the presiding member of the Green Adelaide Board, Professor Chris Daniels.

Chris Daniels:

Hello, Mel. Thanks so much for having us.

Melissa Martin:

Well, so today we'll be talking about Green Adelaide in general and a little bit about rewilding as well, which is a fun concept, which feels kind of new to many. So first we'll just dive into you guys and a little bit about you. And so you both are very cool, calm leaders, very approachable leaders in the environmental sector. And so I just want to get to know you guys a little bit better. So the first question is what South Australians love to ask, and I'm sure you've got it many, many times in your life, is what school did you go to?

Chris Daniels:

Yes, the quintessential South Australian question, isn't it? So I went to Linden Park Demonstration School as a primary student and then moved to St. Peter's College, left there in 1977.

Melissa Martin:

And Brenton, you're very different in your journey to environmental leader for school.

Brenton Grear:

Chris has got a great pedigree. Mine I would call great. It's the Elizabeth East Primary School, Murray Bridge South Primary School and Elizabeth High School. So look, great people. One of our ex governors came from Elizabeth East Primary School, so there you go.

Melissa Martin:

And so Chris, I'll start with you. If you could tell a little about your story of how you ended up as an environmental leader. So how did you go from high school to your journey to be environmental leader today?

Chris Daniels:

Well, look, it was really a very easy set of decisions for me. I was always incredibly passionate about nature. I started off as a four or five year old fosking around in the bush up at the Mount Lofty Ranges collecting frogs in particular and just sort of hunting and roaming the hills with my brother and some other friends. Once you spend time outdoors, you can't ever do anything else. And so I was bitten by the zoological bug really early, particularly then moved into reptiles. So I was only ever going to do zoology at university, which I absolutely loved. I was a fairly average student at school, but I just adored doing zoology.

And so from there I just followed the line through the PhD. Was lucky enough to get a scholarship to go to University of New England, which was just animal heaven up there in a rural community, which was fantastic. And worked as a tutor there to put myself through the PhDs. And then I landed my first academic job at University of California at Irvine and then from there to Flinders and followed up through to my first professorship in 2005. So remained a professor there until 2018 when offered the job to move away from doing academic teaching to trying it in the real world and spent some time with community, engaging them with nature.

Brenton Grear:

Yeah, different than Chris's, but there are similarities. So as you noted, brought up in Elizabeth to start off with and Elizabeth was an outskirt and so we roamed the creeks and the hills and so on. And so I wasn't particularly drawn to the wildlife, I have to be honest. The landforms always interested me. So a gully, [inaudible 00:07:16] was a gully there or Hills Face was there. So I love that part of it. My family wasn't particularly nerdy, but what I'm going to say next makes them sound nerdy. I do remember sitting around tea tables and having conversations with my three brothers and parents about the value of the Hills Face Zone for example.

And then dad actually joined the Monarto Development Commission, which was going to be a new town, just Adelaide side of Murray Bridge. And he took us up there for a couple of years and that gave more of a chance to just roam the countryside and do things. So that ended up, even though I did spend a year straight out of high school as a... They called you a messenger research officer at Parliament House, but really you were just a glorified messenger boy, not even glorified. So that opened me up to politics, which was fascinating. But then yeah, I ended up doing honors in geography and a great dip in natural resources.

Melissa Martin:

To get to know our leaders a little differently, we're going to do a quick lightning round. Chris and Brenton, I'll ask each of you 10 either/or questions and then please call out your answer. So Chris, texting or talking?

Chris Daniels:

Texting.

Melissa Martin:

Favorite day of the week?

Chris Daniels:

Saturday.

Melissa Martin:

Nickname your parents used to call you?

Chris Daniels:

Chris or Christopher if I was in trouble

Melissa Martin:

First celebrity crush?

Chris Daniels:

Farrah Fawcett-Majors.

Melissa Martin:

Dawn or dusk?

Chris Daniels:

Dawn.

Melissa Martin:

What's the best age?

Chris Daniels:

Now.

Melissa Martin:

Name one of the seven dwarfs.

Chris Daniels:

Grumpy.

Melissa Martin:

Would you want to live forever?

Chris Daniels:

No.

Melissa Martin:

What's for dinner tonight?

Chris Daniels:

Probably pasta.

Melissa Martin:

Godfather or Star Wars?

Chris Daniels:

Godfather.

Melissa Martin:

Cool. Thank you.

Brenton Grear:

Good. That's kind of weird. I've learned something about Chris.

Chris Daniels:

[inaudible 00:09:18].

Melissa Martin:

All right.

Brenton Grear:

Not chips and [inaudible 00:09:22] chicken.

Chris Daniels:

No, no- [inaudible 00:09:23]

Brenton Grear:

They were good chips though, weren't they?

Chris Daniels:

... but then we did eat them so, they were quite delicious.

Melissa Martin:

All right, Brenton, 30 seconds on the clock. Brenton, big dogs or small dogs?

Brenton Grear:

Small dogs.

Melissa Martin:

How many hours of sleep do you need?

Brenton Grear:

Seven.

Melissa Martin:

Are rat's cute?

Brenton Grear:

No.

Melissa Martin:

How many cups of coffee do you drink per day?

Brenton Grear:

Three.

Melissa Martin:

Giving presents or getting presents?

Brenton Grear:

Giving presents.

Melissa Martin:

Climb a mountain or jump from a plane?

Brenton Grear:

Climb a mountain.

Melissa Martin:

If you were given the opportunity to fly into space, would you take it?

Brenton Grear:

Yeah, no.

Melissa Martin:

How would you rate your karaoke skills on a scale of one to Mariah Carey?

Brenton Grear:

I am excellent.

Melissa Martin:

What's the name of the street you grew up on?

Brenton Grear:

Nimitz Road.

Melissa Martin:

What's your favorite bird?

Brenton Grear:

Square-tailed kite.

Chris Daniels:

Actually though what's good to do it, I should do those about Brenton and Brenton should do that about me.

Brenton Grear:

That would give some really interesting answers.

Melissa Martin:

Now, let's jump to a bit of a different topic and talk about rewilding, which can be a bit of a buzz term. And just to bring a link there. So the wilder word in our vision for Green Adelaide came from the term rewilding and the concept or term entered the conversation in probably the early nineties and it gained a lot of momentum in Europe, in the US in the mid nineties. It is very generally about restoring the natural processes with minimal to no management needed in the long term. A really popular example of rewilding is the gray wolves that were introduced or reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the US in '95. The impact of reintroducing this apex predator to the park who was originally I think killed off in the 1930s, kicked off an avalanche of beneficial change, including an increase in the beaver population, helped the elk population move around and it has helped regenerate the plant and river life in the park and it's left it in better shape today.

Now, there are some negatives to the rewilding, but that's the general positive spin on it and it's a popular story. So rewilding the park with wolves brought back balance to the park's ecosystem. Now, there's research out there that points out that rewilding means different things in different countries, even the term urban. So city rewilding can mean something else. So what does urban rewilding mean here in metropolitan South Australia? Is it about returning apex predators to our city?

Chris Daniels:

So shall I start?

Brenton Grear:

Yeah, you go on.

Chris Daniels:

All right, but I'll make sure you have plenty of time for Brenton because... So yes, rewilding initially started off in the 1990s as the concept of bringing back complex nature, but it was predator driven, and it was apex predator driven. So you discussed wolves, for example, there and you have huge scale land, a large number of connections and then you reintroduce apex predators that control the herbivores that were destroying the landscape. So you talked about elk as a good example of an animal that was chewing all the trees and that works for that sort of Yellowstone. And there's Yellowstone to Yukon. There's the great Caledonian Forest in Scotland. There's the big Eastern band that runs through Poland, Romania, Bulgaria now. There's a range of others here.

From there the word rewilding moved into translocations or the reintroduction of species that had gone extinct from a particular region. It also applies to humans rewilding themselves. So going out and eating mushrooms, which I don't recommend, because you can never be quite sure what mushroom you're eating. But connecting with foraging and just forest bathing and those sorts of activities. There are a number of important cultural issues that were raised around rewilding, including removing people from land that they had farmed for hundreds of generations for example. And there were some clashes around those in Europe and in West Africa. In Australia we don't really have an apex predator. So that sort of approach doesn't work.

There has been suggestions to reintroduce dingoes to some areas and that's been met with ferocious debate of course by many sheep farmers in many sorts of farmers. And in fact our problem is not introducing predators, it's actually getting rid of introduced predators. So cats and foxes do so much damage to it. So we have to rethink about it. And the way we've tended to think about it is around translocations. So introducing species back into areas. So there have been tammar wallaby into Innes National Park, the collection of bilbies that have been introduced into Ikara-

Brenton Grear:

That you've been involved in.

Chris Daniels:

Those sorts of activities.

Brenton Grear:

[inaudible 00:14:172].

Chris Daniels:

Yellow rock wallabies. Yep, that's right, so those sorts of things. If you're reintroducing species that were there and that have a role in an ecosystem but have been eliminated because of degraded habitat or hunting or whatever, why can't you do that in an urban area? And urban areas tend to be in biodiversity hotspots, because we've tended to put our cities on the best water, on the best land. So therefore you've got the best soil, air, and water. So not surprisingly you had the best biodiversity. And in South Australia we have a biodiversity hotspot, one of only 15 in Australia, the only one found in South Australia, and it's the city of Adelaide with the Mount Lofty Rangers and Kangaroo Island.

So this is where most of the biodiversity is or was. So it certainly beholds us to bring back things that were here or to support those that are on a knife edge. So things like sacred kingfisher, pygmy blue-tongues, chequered copper butterflies, square-tailed kite, these animals and also a range of plants like orchids have really struggled. But if we can bring them back, they should establish, they should be part of our landscape. And then we are both improving our quality of life and we are playing a really important role in conserving biodiversity. So that's what rewilding in an urban context means to me.

Brenton Grear:

Yeah. I like some of the examples, in Adelaide, it's certainly not a apex predator, but you often have to start with the habitat and the plants first, of course. You need somewhere for the animal, whatever it is to live. And a pretty successful one has been the tussock sedge lands. I think the plant's called Gahnia filum and coastal people have been reintroducing in that. And then that means you can reintroduce the yellowish sedge-skipper, not the yellow sedge-skipper because-

Melissa Martin:

It's a butterfly.

Brenton Grear:

It's a butterfly, yes.

Chris Daniels:

But it's yellowish, not yellow. You've got to get this right.

Brenton Grear:

And you better not get that wrong. And that's been great because school kids have been involved in that. And I know there are a number of other butterflies that have been reintroduced after the grasslands and sedge lands have come back. So I love that part about it. So for us it does usually end with translocations of some sort.

Melissa Martin:

So we've got a few good stories for Australia, but why do you think the concept here hasn't been as successful?

Brenton Grear:

Can I say that I think one has been incredibly successful and Chris may disagree with me here, but koalas, so koalas introduced into the Adelaide Mount Lofty Rangers. I think Chris will correct me here, but they haven't been here for at least two to 3000 years, I understand. They were reintroduced in maybe the 1910s and twenties. Wow. They have been successful perhaps that they may be categorized as over abundant now. But there's one rewilding, so it's not such a new term.

Chris Daniels:

That's a really interesting example because we do think about rewilding differently to the rest of the world. We're undergoing significant climate change and we have removed a huge amount of the habitat, the natural habitat of this continent. We're not a country, we're a continent and we have done this whole scale damage. So therefore it is apparent that some species are doing well or may only survive in areas that they weren't in previously. So Koalas is a really good example where they're thriving in South Australia and Victoria but are looking like they will go extinct in Queensland and Northern New South Wales. So if you want to save the species it may well be important to save them here.

Melissa Martin:

Another question just that will lead into is around the cultural impact of rewilding. So in other words, people need to change their perception of nature as you leaded to before Chris. So do you think the people of Adelaide are ready for a wilder city or we really love our good looking aesthetic city?

Chris Daniels:

Such a good question. I'll answer it very briefly. Yes. I think because we have naturally been a garden city. So our backyards and our front yards were always really important to us. Maybe not our open spaces because we always had our open space, we always did our family things in our backyard. But that meant we maintained lawns, we had trees, we put in lots of trees, all sorts of trees. We have 1,500 introduced established species of trees from elsewhere in the world now, species of plants, which is the same number of species as our indigenous species. So we've got 3,000 different species of plant just in our greater Adelaide area. So we love plants, so we love nature. Now it's about education and engagement, about helping people take responsibility, by sharing and assisting, providing resources so that people can then take the next steps to becoming more ecologically literate.

Brenton Grear:

And I don't think we should expect people to always make that jump by themselves. So that's one of the roles for Green Adelaide to make the case, make the argument that being a wilder city is a better thing and wilder looks a bit different. But if you were brought up with a neat manicured lawn, a rose garden, a couple of specimen trees, to see the park lands, to see your local park having a little unkept grassland, that's what it may look like. That takes a little bit of understanding and acceptance and you're not going to write a letter to the council about it not being mowed anymore.

Chris Daniels:

It's not black and white, it's always about and. So you can love roses. Adelaide is one of the rose capitals of the world, and you can love nature, and you can enjoy many of our wonderful trees like Jacarandas that are introduced, and you can recognize the importance of river red gums as the boarding house of the bush.

Melissa Martin:

And Brenton, what do you say to those, maybe your neighbors or your family who are more about their convenience? I don't want a tree because I don't want branches falling on my footpath. I don't want grass because I want fake grass because I want it to look good all the time. I don't want to maintain it any time of my life. So what do you say to people who have that philosophy towards nature?

Brenton Grear:

That is difficult sometimes and I have older parents who we might have that argument occasionally. So by retaining trees on your property, yes, you'll have to either yourself or get someone to clean your gutters occasionally. But you've got shade in summer. We have beautiful but long hot summers. And I can tell you now that being able to go outside your property and to walk into shade is a beautiful thing. You actually might save money as well because you actually might not spend so much money on air conditioning. You also might save money on fuel for your lawnmower because you may not be having to mow so much lawn. There are trade-offs and you've got to change your mindset as well, that neat isn't always the best thing to have around your district in your suburb.

Melissa Martin:

So let's jump to the river Torrens. So everyone who lives in metropolitan Adelaide has probably visited the Torrens at least once and you might not even know it because it's actually 85 kilometers long and it runs from the hills to the sea. So it is our main river and we like to say it's the soul of Adelaide. But as you might know, the ecosystem of the Torrens was messed up in the past. So people generally still think it's polluted. They think they can't touch it, can't swim in it, definitely can't drink it. So I know there's been lots of work over the last 20 years to make it healthier. So much work has got into it, but the same sentiment is still there. People think it's a bit too polluted. So do you think, and I'll throw this to you Brenton, to start off, has it become too wild today or are we just really stuck in this manicure? It has to look crystal clear like a pool. Is it too wild from 20 years of rehab or is it still polluted?

Brenton Grear:

Interesting question, Mel. So is it too wild? No, absolutely not. And often we talk about rivers in terms of their reaches, different parts of the river. And right now there are parts of the Torrens that are wild, but there are certainly parts that are very manicured as well. I wouldn't call the Torrens lake near the Adelaide Oval particularly wild. Although, hats off to the local council, they're planting rushes and sedges and things around it. So is it too polluted? That's another one. I won't say too much. I'll hand to Chris. But we have had some feedback from interstate colleagues who have gone, "Wow, in terms of the visual pollution, so much less here in the Torrens than they would expect to see in a similar river in urban areas in the eastern states." And in water quality, I think it still has a few problems in terms of water quality. But what do you think, Chris?

Chris Daniels:

It's actually not too bad in terms of water quality as part of a number of projects that will come up to the public eye in the next few months. We have had measures of the litter in the river and it's doing incredibly well. And that's in large part to things like the container legislation, that 10 cents for bottles and cans. So there's not those sorts of structures in the water. We also run gross pollutant traps up and down several of the feeder creeks as well as the main river, and that traps the leaf and the sticks and so forth. So that's reduced the mullick that's gone into the river. So it's actually in surprisingly good condition, it really has recovered spectacularly. It's brown because it has vegetation in it and the tannins come out and most rivers that have strong vegetation around it are brown in color. So that swimming pool type belief is a really poor image.

Melissa Martin:

And the last question that's leading from the Torrens and how great it has got over the years is around, I guess, Green Adelaide's project. So I'm rewinding, I guess we're focusing on small mammals and how we can reintroduce them. So one of our projects for Green Adelaide is about how we can reintroduce platypus to the river Torrens, which is very exciting. So for those listening that might not know, the platypus were actually native to the Torrens back in the 1880s and then through colonization and development on the river, they were lost. So maybe I'll start with you, Brenton. Just a two part question to it and I'll throw it to Chris for the second part. Do you think it's possible to release platypus into the Torrens?

Brenton Grear:

I do think it's possible. I have the luxury of having seen some of the work that's been done over the last couple of years that would lead me to say that. But we have habitat, we have water quality, we need to find the right platypus. We need to get the community to support it. But I absolutely think it's possible.

Melissa Martin:

And Chris, how far off do you think we are to, I can walk down the Torrens, I live in Henley Beach area, walk down the Torrens in Henley Beach or West Beach really, and can I see a platypus there? How long to I can see a platypus?

Chris Daniels:

I think it won't be very long. I think not only can we do it, I think we must do it. I think we owe it to the platypus, that we're the ones who removed them from their habitat, we should be responsible for bringing it back. I think we owe it to Kaurna people for whom platypus were a really important iconic animal, really up there with the ibis and the red kangaroo of course, as really crucial animals that they use to explain how they use the landscape. So we owe it.

We do need to engage the community and there are things that we need to do to make sure that platypus are safe and happy and capable of breeding. But our work to date has shown that it is possible and it is possible in months to years. Would I like to do it now? Absolutely. I would love to get [inaudible 00:26:53] and work with Kaurna to have them release it. It is actually their story. Our part of the story isn't good, but we've got it back so that it's their story. You know what? Of the 85 kilometers, probably 70 kilometers of it, a perfect platypus habitat. So it's where you would do it and how you would manage it, that's the really important next steps.

Melissa Martin:

Let's finish off with some key takeaways. Chris, Brenton, what should people who want to get into the environmental industry or sector in South Australia know about study a career or even just a hobby in the environment and for the environment?

Chris Daniels:

That it's not as hard as people tell you it is. I think one of the things I get really frustrated with as an academic and then working in this sector in more private or government roles is how many times people say, "Don't do science, don't do environment. You'll never get a job. You'll waste your life. It's a waste of time. Keep it as a hobby, but it's not a serious profession." That's absolute rubbish. If you are committed to any aspect of environment, from geography to botany, there are a lot of jobs and a lot of jobs are in unusual places like working for local government, working for mining companies, doing consultancies. There's all sorts of different activities. And now actually working in the political sphere as well, because environmental issues are really important. Working in law, working in health, working in education, all of these have environmental connections.

Brenton Grear:

I'd say learn more about what interests you because you just never know where it might take you. And I think have an optimistic attitude with those of who you work with. I think you'll find most local governments, most communities actually innately do value their local environment. And so if you're interested in urban biodiversity, biodiversity at all, urban greening, yeah, people will appreciate that, will want to learn about that and will actually almost implicitly understand that that makes for a better life for them.

Melissa Martin:

Thank you again to our guests on our first episode. We had the leaders of Green Adelaide, who are also my bosses, the Green Adelaide presiding member, Professor Chris Daniels and Green Adelaide Director, Brenton Grear. Thank you again. This is a Green Adelaide Podcast. Thank you for tuning in. We are your insider scoop on all things cool, green and wild in metropolitan South Australia. And remember, subscribe to our podcast for new episode alerts. Catch you all for our next episode in late July.