Saving Rainforests: Bob Brown in Conversation

Bob Brown at Liffey / Source: Matt Newton

One of the most recognised figures in Australian politics, Dr Bob Brown has had a profound influence on the Australian cultural and political landscape. Like Greta Thunberg, his activism began with a few simple, lone acts of protest that helped create a movement. He went direct from a Risdon prison cell to the Tasmanian Parliament. He has fought to save the Franklin River, Tasmania’s wilderness, and to stop the Adani coal mine. He’s campaigned for indigenous rights, LGBT rights, refugee rights, gun control, political accountability and against the Murdoch empire. Along the way, he’s been imprisoned, assaulted, threatened, and shot at. 

Dr. Kevin Rowe with Broad-toothed Rat, Mastacomys fuscus, scat overlooking Burn Scar after 2019-2020 bushfires. / Source: Museums Victoria / Photo: Nish Nizar

Dr Kevin Rowe is Senior Curator of Mammals at Museums Victoria and an Honorary Fellow in Biosciences at the University of Melbourne. His research combines fieldwork, museum collections, genomics and emerging technologies to define species, track threats and understand ecosystem resilience under climate change and other human impacts. For the past 14 years, he has led monitoring of the endangered Smoky Mouse in the Grampians National Park of western Victoria, including the impacts of catastrophic fires in 2013 and 2025. Since 2010 he has collaborated with the Indonesian government and natural history museum, Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense, to conduct biodiversity inventories in rainforests of Indonesia leading to description of dozens of new mammalian species and the designation of new protected areas.

This conversation will be moderated by ABC Radio National’s Hilary Harper / Source: ABC Radio National

Hilary Harper grew up in regional Australia and loves the way radio connects people through storytelling, a practice which transcends time, space and football codes. She's been ferreting out ordinary people's extraordinary stories for over 30 years, including 20 at the ABC, most recently as a weekday host on Radio National. Her life goal is to one day own enough bookshelves.