Committee
Dr Stefan Eberhard
Co-founder
Stefan is a scientist, explorer, and photographer, and has spent his life exploring, studying, and documenting caves and their natural wonders, including the Nullarbor caves which he first visited in 1983 as a young cave diver with the team that explored Cocklebiddy Cave, the world's longest underwater cave at the time. Stefan is one of Australia’s leading researchers in the field of subterranean ecology. He is the founding Director of Subterranean Ecology Pty Ltd, an Honorary Associate with the Western Australian Museum, and an Adjunct Affiliate at the University of New South Wales (Connected Waters Initiative Research Centre). Stefan has a deep and holistic interest in natural environments, systems and processes, and their conservation management, especially karst environments. His Nullarbor investigations, commissioned separately by the Western Australian and South Australian governments, embrace cave and karst feature metrics, subterranean biodiversity, natural and cultural heritage values, environmental impacts, monitoring, and management.
Bronwen Eberhard
Co-founder
Bronwen has a double major in Japanese and a Graduate Diploma in Education. She trained as an Autism Specialist and in Narrative Coaching. Throughout her life Bronwen has always helped people step into the potential of who they can be. Listening for truth. Questioning how we support and scaffold each other to shift out of limiting definitions and step into powerful distinctions that allow us to feel whole, and to be authentically ourselves. Since 2017, Bronwen has been changing her own narrative on trips in Tasmania and to the Nullarbor. She learnt to sail a yacht, fly a drone, and spent 36 hours in a very long Nullarbor cave. At 60 Bronwen stepped through her lifelong fear of heights to learn to abseil in and prussik out of caves to work alongside Stefan photographing the caves of Tasmania and the Nullarbor.
Professor David Gillieson
David (Honorary Professor, University of Melbourne) is a recognised expert in karst landscape processes. He has authored 180 peer-reviewed publications and consultancy reports, with eight books or monographs, including the seminal text “Caves: Processes, Development and Management”. In 2022, he led a team of world experts to produce the “UIS-IUCN Guidelines for Cave and Karst Protection”, which have now been translated into twenty-two languages. His research includes the hydrology of the Nullarbor Plain, as well as karst processes in Papua New Guinea and Malaysia. These reflect a strong interest in resource management and development issues in limestone terrains, as well as in cave and karst geomorphology. David is Australian Vice President of the Australasian Cave and Karst Management Association, a regular reviewer for IUCN World Heritage nominations, and has advised State and Federal governments on cave and karst management over many years.
Professor Jon Woodhead
Jon is Professor emeritus at the University of Melbourne and is highly regarded for his expertise in geochronology and geochemistry. He has received numerous awards for his research including an Australian Research Council Discovery outstanding researcher award (2013-2015), and a prestigious Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship (2016-2020). His work has been recognised globally by the Geochemical Society who appointed him as a Fellow in 2017. Together with a dedicated team of researchers he has been studying the origin, age and scientific significance of the Nullarbor caves for over two decades and was the first person to provide robust radiometric ages for the cave systems, confirming their antiquity. He is a strong advocate for the conservation of these globally unique landforms and promoting the case for their consideration as a World Heritage Site.
Dr Jess Marsh
Dr Jess Marsh is an arachnologist with specialist expertise in spider taxonomy and conservation ecology. She is a Research Fellow with Murdoch University and honorary research associate with the South Australian Museum. Jess is a founding member and Conservation Lead at Invertebrates Australia, a Councillor with the Biodiversity Council, and a member of the IUCN's Spider and Scorpion Specialist Group. Her recent research on the Nullarbor Blind Cave Spider has found key evidence of genetic connectivity between cave populations that has profound implications for species and habitat conservation under the Nullarbor.
Dr Liz Reed
Dr Liz Reed is a vertebrate palaeontologist specialising in Quaternary cave deposits, palaeoclimate, and understanding biodiversity change over time, especially in the southeast region of South Australia and the Nullarbor Plain. Liz is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Adelaide University. She is also a member of the Environment Institute. Liz is passionate about cave conservation and science communication, and she brings a wealth of experience from the Naracoorte Caves which were listed as World Heritage based on their palaeontological values.
Dr Grant Gartrell
Grant gained a PhD in Physics from the University of Adelaide in 1971 and worked for almost 40 years as a Defence Scientist. Grant has been exploring, mapping, and researching caves for almost his entire life which now spans eight decades. He has participated in numerous expeditions to the Nullarbor karst where he has applied his knowledge of physics and mathematics to design and implement novel field experiments to measure and interpret the micro-meteorology of the Nullarbor’s famous breathing caves. This specialised yet fundamental field of research offers a key to modelling the physical structure, function, and processes beneath the surface of the Nullarbor, which have profound implications for understanding the atmospheric, geomorphic, hydrologic, and ecological characteristics of this extraordinarily honeycombed karst; the latter of which confers significant environmental risks and geotechnical hazards that should ordinarily and sensibly preclude industrial developments. Grant is an Honorary Life Member of both the Australasian Cave and Karst Management Association and the Cave Exploration Group of South Australia.
Andy Spate AM
Andy is a cave explorer, scientist, and karst area manager. For many years he served as Karst Officer for the government of New South Wales, National Parks & Wildlife Service. This included chairing such bodies as the Jenolan Caves Social and Environmental Monitoring Committee. Andy has visited the Nullarbor Plain many times over five decades. He is a co-author of several scientific papers on various aspects of the limestone plain. He was a contributor to the 1992 report commissioned by the Commonwealth Government into the World Heritage values of the Nullarbor and has been involved in several World Heritage nominations in Australia and Asia. He is an Honorary Member of both the Australian Speleological Federation Inc and the Australasian Cave and Karst Management Association Inc, and in 2019 was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in recognition of his role in karst conservation and management.
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Cindy Mathers
Cindy is the author of DELVE-ing into Cultural Humility: How Respect and Deep Listening Can Heal a Nation (2023). She is considered a strong and knowledgeable ally by First Nations people around Australia. She has lived and worked in remote communities with First Nations people and has experienced firsthand the impact of our traumatised, fragmented, and broken systems on First Nations people and indeed us all. Her areas of expertise include Community Health and Development, Nursing, Education, Alternative Education and Trauma-aware, Healing-informed Social and Emotional Wellbeing Programs. Cindy was awarded co-winner of the Aboriginal Mentor Award in 2014 with the Victorian Health Department after she intensely mentored her adult First Nations students in Allied Health and implemented the 8 Aboriginal Ways of learning into her curriculum, creating a unique training pathway for them to successfully complete their training. Several years of volunteer work with First Nations people has enabled her to be innovative and creative in program co-design and co-delivery. She believes as country, we need to acknowledge the remaining trauma in the collective psyche caused by colonisation and that the restoration of Human Rights for all is needed for healing and moving forward together.
Patron
Dr Bob Brown
Defender of the Earth, co-founder of The Wilderness Society, The Greens, founder of Bush Heritage Australia, and co-founder of the Bob Brown Foundation, former Senator Bob Brown generously contributes his immense campaigning experience, wisdom and encouragement to Save The Nullarbor.
Legal Advisor
Dr Gerry Bates - Specialist in Environmental Law and Policy
Dr Gerry Bates was one of the first academics in an Australian university to introduce environmental law to the curriculum. Gerry is well known in Australia for his standard university text ‘Environmental Law in Australia’, now in its 11th edition. He is also the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the ‘Environmental and Planning Law Journal’, published by Thomsons that has run continuously since its inception in 1983. Between 1986 and 1996 Dr. Bates was a Green Independent Member of Parliament in Tasmania. He resigned in 1996 to return to the law. Dr Bates served on the Board of the Environment Protection Authority of NSW from 1998 – 2010; and on the Board of Kimbriki Environmental Enterprises, a regional waste recovery centre and landfill serving four local governments on Sydney’s Northern Beaches from 2008-2013. In 1996 the National Environmental Law Association conferred on Dr Bates an award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Environmental Law’; and in 2016 a similar award was conferred by the Law Council of Australia, Planning and Environment branch. In 2023 Dr. Bates was made a Life Member of the National Environmental Law Association. Dr Bates is currently teaching postgraduate units at the University of Sydney, Law and Science Faculties; and working pro bono with the Law Committee of the Mulloon Institute to modify or remove legal impediments to landscape rehydration and restoration projects. He has recently completed a consultancy project on stewardship for wildlife as part of the program for reform of the Wildlife Act in Victoria.
Scientific Advisors & Supporters
Dr Kevin Kiernan - Geomorphologist
Kevin Kiernan PhD is a geomorphologist and author of over 100 refereed papers plus various monographs and books based on research across all climatic zones from the Antarctic through the tropics to the Arctic. His karst involvements have included membership of three International Geographical Union working groups on various aspects of karst and karst management; the International Association of Hydrogeologists’ Commission on Hydrogeology of Karst; and he is a past Australian vice president and fellow of the Australasian Cave and Karst Management Association. His career commenced with many years as a professional environmental advocate, then as a national park planner, and then as a consultant, followed by nearly two decades working as a geomorphologist in the forest industry and later many years as an academic. His nature conservation experience includes having been a member of the World Commission on Protected Areas of IUCN, The World Conservation Union; having served as a referee on various World Heritage nominations; been a contributor to the IUCN’s Global Guide on Managing Protected Areas, and his first-hand knowledge of many WHAs worldwide.
Dr Mateja Ferk - Geomorphologist Karstologist
Mateja gained a PhD in Geography from the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) in 2014 and works as a fulltime researcher at the Geographical Institute of the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. The main focus of her scientific work is dedicated to karst geomorphology, especially to palaeoenvironmental and palaeohydrological reconstructions of karst landscapes. Much of her research is carried out in the classical Dinaric Kars, and she is also involved in numerous studies in diverse karst landscapes throughout the world, with particular emphasis on the Nullarbor Plain. Since 2012 she is actively involved in studies of past and present surface karst features and caves on the Nullarbor, and is the co-initiator of the first continuous monitoring system of temperature and humidity data (since 2019) in collaboration with the Australian Speleological Federation.
Dr Matej Lipar - Geomorphologist Karstologist
Matej is a geomorphologist and karstologist at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU). His expertise primarily lies in the study of karst phenomena within eogenetic carbonate rocks and the reconstruction of palaeoenvironments from the Quaternary to the Miocene periods. Dr. Lipar earned his PhD in geoscience from La Trobe University in Melbourne. Since 2011, he has been rigorously investigating both the surface and subsurface of the Nullarbor Plain. He has been involved in research dealing with karst pocket valleys along the Nullarbor escarpment, challenging the longstanding theory of deep cave formation through sulfuric acid speleogenesis, identifying limestone-imprinted dunes that represent one of the earliest linear dunes in Australia, discovering remnants of the ancient Nullarbor limestone coral reef, and with the collaboration of Australian Speleological Federation establishing the first continuous monitoring of cave climates in the Nullarbor.
Professor Steven Cooper - Evolutionary Biologist - Molecular Geneticist
Steven is an evolutionary biologist and molecular geneticist based at the School of Biological Sciences and Environment Institute of the University of Adelaide, after a 30-year career with the South Australian Museum and 190 peer reviewed publications. He has focused much of his research on biodiversity discovery and the evolution of subterranean fauna, particularly groundwater and cave fauna of Western Australia. He has collaborated extensively with morphological taxonomists, and leading biospeleologists, including Bill Humphreys from the Western Australian Museum, to document and describe Australia’s subterranean species and investigate their evolutionary origins. He also uses genomic analyses to investigate fundamental questions in evolutionary biology, including why cave animals go blind and how they have adapted to dark, nutrient poor, environments. Recently, he has commenced collaborative research on the cave and surface fauna of the Nullarbor and is deeply concerned that many subterranean species are currently undocumented, with major consequences for environmental assessments of this unique habitat.
Dr Tina Parkhurst - Terrestrial and Landscape Ecologist
Tina is a terrestrial and landscape ecologist with 15 years experience in assessing and restoring biodiversity of terrestrial ecosystems, including assessing the impacts of invasive species (e.g. feral animals and weeds). Her work has mostly focused on arid and semi-arid landscapes in South Australia and Western Australia. Tina’s PhD at Murdoch University quantified ecosystem recovery and biodiversity benefits following ecological restoration in arid-zone ecosystems. Prior and during her PhD, Tina worked as a data analyst and subject matter expert for the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), where she was responsible for the curation, modelling and subsequent publication of Australian ecosystem data. She is currently a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, where she is developing ecosystem approaches for nature related disclosure frameworks to quantify biodiversity impacts and linking ecological risk to commercial risks. This research builds on substantial scientific work, led by Australian researchers Profs D. Keith and E. Nicholson, advancing the science of quantifying and predicting risks to ecosystem which led to the development of the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems framework. Tina’s research has been published in peer-reviewed international journals such as The Journal of Ecology and Ecological Applications.