NPWS Conservation Forum

I was lucky enough to attend the 2026 NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) Conservation Forum that had a focus on Conservation through Connection. This was the second research forum run by NPWS and was aimed to provide networking opportunities and a platform for staff across DCCEEW to “share knowledge and learnings, and to showcase progress in delivering priority conservation initiatives across our national parks and reserve system”. Hence, the focus was NPWS and DCCEEW staff, and there were only two academics in attendance. Although I understand the justification for this, it was a great opportunity from an academic viewpoint to hear about the diversity of research and conservation action being undertaken on NPWS estate and beyond.

Fig. 1. Attendees of the NPWS Conservation Forum. Can you see the award winning recent UoN graduate now working in the EcoHealth team (Grace Johns), or Bryce Davies, or Julia Rayment – who led the phytophthora study, or Kieran Marshall – who worked with Emily on camera trapping our forests, or Dave Kelly and Sarah Bell from the Ngambaa team, or Claire and Ella who helped out with the parma translocation from Mt Wilson, or me. Lots of connections to the UoN Centre for Conservation Science.

James Watson from the University of Queensland gave a keynote address and talked about his work alongside Steve Murphy on night parrot conservation. Jack Gough from the Invasive Species Council gave a great talk lamenting the lack of funding in the latest budget for invasive species management.

A couple of other interesting talks:

• Vera Wong talked about the EcoHealth monitoring being undertaken by NPWS. This is such an important program for assessing the condition of our national parks, and will probably feed into the national State of the Environment reporting.

• Julie Kingswood talked about the Blue Mountains water skink that has a very similar distribution to the Littlejohn’s tree frog that we study (the skinks don’t go as far south onto the Woronora plateau), and is also affected by underground mining, subsidence and drying.

• Grace Hooper described the creation of artificial ponds for northern corroborree frogs, which reminded me of the ponds we created for Littlejohn’s tree frogs.

• Natasha Robinson talked about her work with Darren, Ryan and Shelby using drones to monitor greater gliders, and compared the results to spotlighting surveys.

• David Hathenbruck, who we worked with on Elise Rourke’s honours project on using dogs to find phytophthora, talked about remote sensing and drones to find weeds around the state.

• Unfortunately, our close collaborator, Rachel Melrose, was crook, so we didn’t get to see her talk, but Julie Kingswood took over to explain her searches for giant burrowing frogs.

We also undertook a field trip to Wianamatta Nature Reserve – a reserve surrounded by the rapidly expanding human population of western Sydney. Interestingly, the reserve arose from a Department of Defence site, and the army dudes had introduced red kangaroos and emus that they captured from their activities elsewhere. The highlight for me was observing the endangered Cumberland land snail.