Overcoming Disadvantage: Past Lessons for Indigenous Futures

Professor Emeritus Brian Roberts has lived half his life in South Africa and half in Australia. An agricultural ecologist by profession, he has a passion for sustainable land use while his highly developed social conscience has led to decades of research into tribal peoples rights and responsibilities. Recognised as 'The Father of Landcare' he was awarded the Order of Australia in 1998, having earlier won the South African Community Service Medal for his work in rural soil conservation. He was the founding president of the Soil and Water Conservation Association of Australia, Organising Chairman of the Ninth International Rangeland Congress and has held professorships at three universities. Prof. Roberts chaired the Lower Balonne Advisory Committee on water sharing, the Queensland Rural Fires Council, the Queensland Freshwater MAC and the Nathan Dam Community Committee on Dawson River Water Supplies. As a senior member of the Cape York Peninsula Land Use Strategy and convenor of CSIRO's Water Quality Joint Venture team in North Queensland as Adjunct in Environmental Studies at James Cook University, he contributed to mainstream and Indigenous community conservation projects. He was a member of the National Soil Conservation Advisory Committee and The Queensland Sheep and Wool Research Committee. Much of his recent writing has been published in Quadrant Online. He is the author of 13 books, many book chapters and numerous journal articles since 1956. As a member of ANU's Fundamental Questions program, he produced the seminal paper 'Land Ethics: A necessary addition to Australian Values' (1984).