Convened by Friends of The Earth’s Forest Collective on March 14-16, 2026's Snow Gum Summit was our ‘Next Ascent’ – the second event hosted to examine current threats and emerging solutions for Snow Gums and Alpine ecosystems.

Photo credit Mike Edmonson.

Snow Gum Summit: The Next Ascent 2026 – Recap

Photo credit: Mike Edmondson

Words by FoE Forests Collective volunteer, Alyssa Sullivan & Forests Collective coordinators.

Photos by Matt Tomkins & Mike Edmondson

Following our impactful Snow Gum Summit 2025, the second Summit was set in the foothills of Kosciusko National Park and built on last year's conversations about the Victorian Alps to connect scientists, First Peoples, land managers and communities across the the Alpine bioregion. 

MCs Alana & Anna, FoE Forests Collective. Photo credit: Mike Edmondson

The event created the opportunity for those who know Snow Gums well (such as experts in the field) and those who would like to know these magnificent mallees better to embark together on a weekend of knowledge sharing, bushwalks and deep reflection on what makes Snow Gums so important to the High Country.

Photo credit: Matt Tomkins

Ngarigo man, Jason Fieldhouse, Director of the Ngarigo Indigenous Corporation and Ambassador for the Worldwide Treaty Council, warmly welcomed participants to Country, grounding the Summit in deep Cultural knowledge and connection.

He spoke of the Snow Gums as a 'voice of reason' within the mountains – beings that hold wisdom and guidance for those who know how to listen. He shared how Snow Gums have long helped Ngarigo people read the landscape: signalling incoming weather and indicating places to move toward or avoid. He also spoke to the practical and cultural uses of the trees, noting the antimicrobial properties of eucalyptus leaves, which were traditionally placed in coolamons to cradle and protect newborn babies.

These reflections offered insight into the enduring relationship between people and Country, one grounded in care, respect, and reciprocity. Jason's words provided a generous window into Ngarigo culture, reminding all present of the depth of knowledge held within these landscapes. We are deeply grateful for his welcome and for the opportunity to gather on such significant land.

Photo credit: Matt Tomkins

Snow Gums (eucalyptus pauciflora), known as ‘Warragung’ in Ngarigo language, are at risk of being lost from slopes of the Australian Alps forever – if we cannot shift gears & realise impactful, long-term solutions to ensure their survival.  

Photo credit: Mike Edmonson

These mountain guardians are companions to so many who move through the backcountry, seeking adventure, a deeper connection to Country, or perhaps a clearer understanding of themselves. For many, Snow Gums are not just part of the landscape, but a comforting and familiar presence – markers of memory, resilience, and return.

Mike Edmondson, an award-winning photographer, professional cross-country skier, and outdoor guide shared a few favourite Snow Gums that he has been visiting for years – trees that have become touchstones in the landscape, quietly witnessing the passage of seasons, stories, and lives.

Mike Edmondson presents to the crowd. Photo credit: Matt Tomkins

Recognised by their windswept branches, twisted trunks and striated bark patterns that blaze vibrantly with colour in wet weather, Snow Gums are keystone ecosystem service providers – and the only tree species visible above the snowline (1800~m).

Their intricate root systems play a critical role in retaining snowpack and the Alp’s hydrology, which feeds 20-29% of the Murray Darling Basin’s flows and keeps ski-fields flush with powder during winter months. 

Photo credit: Matt Tomkins

Snow gums provide important habitat for critically endangered animals. The corroboree frog seeks protection amongst their roots in bogs and fens and mountain pygmy possums take shelter in the rocky environment of the alpine tree-line. You can see gang-gang cockatoos nesting in their ancient hollows and hear yellow-faced honeyeaters migrating uphill during spring and summer to feed on the nectar produced from their flowers.

Photo credit: Matt Tomkins

Understanding the Problem 

Snow gums are deeply interwoven into the fabric of Alpine landscapes and High Country culture. However, without our help, they could permanently disappear, due to the mounting threat of ecological collapse. As average temperatures rise due to climate change, Alpine summers drag on longer than they used to and dramatic weather events are shifting the balance of these sensitive ecosystems. Larger, more frequent and intense bushfire events are leaving our snow gums less time to recover, slowly transitioning tree stands to grasslands.

The average temperature rise has also extended the breeding season of a native Eucalypt borer beetle (phoracantha mastersi), known as the Longicorn beetle. This insect feasts on the trees' sapwood, effectively ring-barking trunks and branches. This leads to declines in the tree's hydraulic function and, ultimately, death. With the beetle numbers bolstered, a natural ecosystem process, once kept in check, is now causing mass dieback events across the country, turning our once colourful snow gum woodlands in to ghostly relics. 

Photo credit: Matt Tomkins

Dr Matthew Brookhouse, a Senior Lecturer at ANU's Fenner School, is certainly no stranger to snow gums. He also happens to be very well acquainted with one of their greatest threats for survival, the phoracantha beetle. Matt is a principal investigator in collaborative research efforts to understand wood-borer induced dieback of Snow Gum Woodland in the Australian Alps – and boy did he teach us a thing or two.

Photo credits Matt Tomkins.

His research revealed a concerning story of a drying climate, dehydrated trees and increased boring beetle activity. His sobering presentation showed that dieback, which was once isolated to specific locations, had become vastly more widespread across the Alpine bioregion recently.

"Temperature is a key environmental trigger for phoracantha life stages. The Longicorn, like many other insects, rely on a build-up of warm days to decide when to emerge into adulthood and begin their reproduction phase."

“Add one degree of warming [above pre-industrial levels] and things begin to happen… At two degrees, the beetle has 40 more days to complete their life cycles,” he tells our audience.

“Somehow this needs to be arrested – otherwise we are seriously pushing things uphill.”

Fire also has a hand in dieback infestations. In severe to moderately burnt areas of woodland, 75% are now longicorn beetle affected. 

“In places [of Kosciusko National Park] that were not infested 5-6 years ago, we’re now seeing beetles arrive in trees around 10cm diameter. These areas are full of trees regenerating from the fires."

Photo credit: Matt Tomkins

Indi Williams’ research supports this. She is an honours student in the Plant Ecology Lab at La Trobe University, who uses dendrochronology to precisely date the year of mortality for each tree killed by the beetle. She discovered a pattern between fire disturbance and insect activity at her study site at Dinner Plain, noting that after a fire event in 2003, insect related mortality rose.

Photo credits Matt Tomkins.

Dr Phil Zylstra of Curtin University is also concerned with increased fire activity in the Alps. He uses complex analyses of fire histories and modelling techniques to answer questions about fire and its place in the mountains.

 Photo credit Matt Tomkins.

Phil's work demonstrates an increase in fire events since colonisation and interrogates the notion that bush needs to be burnt en-masse to mitigate bushfire risk. He argues that the structure of mature forests makes them more resilient to bushfires and that frequent planned burning (as its currently administered by state government agencies) actually leads to faster shrub growth, increasing flammability risk longer term.

Phil emphasises that the term ‘fuel-load,’ which is a key rating criterion in state government planned burn assessments, was originally borrowed as a concept from American Pine Silviculture operations. He believes the term does not apply to our forest communities, which are acutely different systems.

Phil asserts that if tree stands are not allowed sufficient rest intervals between fire events, whether that be intense burns planned as part of fire management regimes or the ever-increasing occurrence of bushfires, the Australian bush will struggle to bounce back.

“Trees are weakened if they’ve already been burnt before," he said. 

 

Mel Schroder is the conservation team leader with Southern Ranges NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service and has three decades of experience in natural resource management.

Photo credits: Matt Tomkins.

She explains that, over her tenure at Kosciuszko National Park, only 10% of the Snow gum community has been spared from fire impacts. That's only 14,000ha out of a total of 125ha of snow gum woodland left unburnt.

The 2025/26 fire season alone had rapid response crews working on five different fire events. She has witnessed fire-related die-off events in older snow gum stands. 

Mel took us through her departments exisiting interventions to mitigate the impact of bushfire on Snow Gums, such as:

• Recognising the significance of snow gum woodlands and maintaining appropriate fire intervals.
• Spatial fire planning tools identifying long unburned stands of sub-alpine snow gums & other alpine sensitive communities – to ensure fire is excluded.
• Fire response plans for Assets of Intergenerational Significance - provide detailed fire management measures in the case of a wildfire.
• Rapid response crews and aircraft on standby during High Fire Danger periods.

 This is in additional to restoration and monitoring programs, including the Scorecard program which has 110+ ecological health monitoring sites across Kosciuszko National Park. Mel hopes to keep bushfires out of Kosciuszko, but worries about how possible this will be to achieve, as the threat continues to escalate.

Matt defines this escalating threat as an existential one facing all biodiversity – and that the challenges facing snow gums are emblematic of broader ecosystem shifts already underway across Australia.

“This is not just about snow gums – this is about climate affected change in ecosystems.

This is a real warning. Wherever you are, die-back events could be coming for you."

 

Exploring emerging solutions 

Photo credit: Matt Tomkins

Euan Diver, Environmental Services Manager of Thredbo says that "people travel from far and wide" to see the snow gums. Euan, alongside Thredbo’s environmental coordinator Brent Bourke, shared the resort's response to Snow Gum dieback. Support for scientific monitoring with Matt Brookhouse's team at ANU was high up on the list, alongside tree planting initiatives in the region. 

Photo credits Matt Tomkins

They both understand that snow gums are one of the "main draws of the area" and would like to see a strengthened relationship between biodiversity offsets and funding for regeneration and research in the coming years.

Photo credit Matt Tomkins.

Mitigating the impact of bushfire

Dr Steve Leonard leads the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area Fire Science Monitoring and Research program. He's an ecologist with over 30 years’ experience in conservation management and applied research – and he’s out fighting fire in some of the most remote areas of the country, where the only way to get in is via a helicopter repel crew. 

Steve has witnessed the effects of a drying climate over the years. Rain still falls episodically in the east, but in the west – it’s getting drier. Fire is now igniting in areas that were historically too wet to burn.

“In the World Heritage Area of Tasmania, lightning fire was not a thing – until the 2000s. Lightning ignition has since exploded.”

Steve marks a "watershed moment" in Tasmania/Lutruwita that announced the arrival of climate change – and ushered in a permanent new threat fire sensitive ecology, like endemic alpine treasures King Billy and Pencil Pine and Gondwanan rainforest species.

 “There is a duality to fire… it is critical to how the landscape functions, but also a threat. We need to exclude fire from some areas and apply it to others, for ecosystem benefits" said Steve.

"If a batch of 'fire sensitive' trees are burnt – that’s those stands done.”

The high stakes created by the 2016 bushfires has spurred the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife service into action when it comes to proactively protecting fire-sensitive ecological communities. This has led to innovations in prevention, preparedness, response and restoration in order to proactively mitigate the threat of climate change driven bushfires on sensitive ecological communities. 

Proactively protecting ecological assets from fire is something not invested in to same extent by other state across Australia, particularly in Victoria (with some rare exceptions like the Alpine Peatlands Fire Mitigation Planning in the Alpine National Park). Most bushfire planning and resourcing is only concerned with protecting people and property, not ecological assests like Snow Gums.

The measures in taken in Tasmania – and learnings from their design and implementation over the past 10 years – could be key to excluding bushfire from important areas if unburnt Snow Gums, if adopted by other states. 

Key management actions that have been engaged include:

1. Limiting human caused ignitions in the World Heritage Areas over all seasons and weather.

2. Mapping significant fire sensitive species and values within reserves and proactively using measures like sprinklers to protect them.

3. Installing remote AI smoke-detection and solar-powered remote cameras to detect small fires before they become big problems.

4. Ensuring natural values specialists are on call during active burn periods and fire season, including potentially embedded within Incident Management Teams responding to fires.

5. Investing in remote-area fire fighting. 

6. Assisted restoration programs for impacted Alpine ecology.

Bethany Dunne is a fire ecologist with the Office of Nature Conservation in the ACT Government. 

She took us on a journey of fires’ legacy in Namagi National Park, which is roughly 46% of the ACT's total land area by the way (not bad for the bush capital). 

About 40% of this area is snow gum woodlands which, after 90% of their vegetation was scorched, are currently in varying states of recovery. Tragically, they were hit not once but twice over a 17-year period, due to the 2003 Canberra Bushfires and 2020 Orroral Valley fire. This has reduced structural complexity and habitat quality, with patches of Journoma snowgums (E. debeuzevillei) transitioning to heathland. Beth is working to formally recognise fire-sensitive Jounama woodlands, which are in critical condition, in policy frameworks.

Beth and her small team pull of work of an incredible scope, responding to the impacts of these compounding bushfire events and tracking the interaction between bushfire and beetle dieback. She is closely monitoring the effect of bushfire events on flora and fauna to inform mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Resist-Accept-Direct 

Ruby Olsson (social science PhD candidate at ANU's Fenner School of Environment and Society) explored the strengths and challenges of the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework, an integral research and decision-making tool being embraced around the world to provide practical, actionable decision making tools and language to environmental managers and researchers navigating climate change impacts. She shared comparative case studies from her time working with Whitebark Pine dieback in the Northwest United States to explore the application of the framework and compare learnings from those managing ecosystems facing similar climate-related threats as Snow Gum in the Australian Alps.

Marion Battishall (NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service) and Michelle Dawson (NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water) are working together to resist the devastating effects of die-back. Recently, Marion planted 150 Snow Gums and 50 shrubs at Smiggin Holes in Kosciuszko National Park. After witnessing beetle dieback in an area of canopy in Guthega over a four year period, she initiated a planting day in 2022. She emphasises that Snow Gums are the standout of the Alpine landscape,

“People really love these trees, they don’t want to see the snow gums die out. They want to see them in place. There are some beautiful old snow gums still persisting above 1850m, hopefully we can find some solutions and keep fire out of Kosciusko as well.”

Dr Justin Borevitz is a professor at ANU working on identifying the genetic basis of climate adaptation to predict and select adaptive genotypes for changing and challenging growing conditions.

He spoke to exciting developments in dieback resistant seed genomics, which could improve Snow Gum succession and aid restoration efforts.

 

“Things are changing quickly, fires, pest, temperatures – to resist, we might need to direct a few [dieback resistant] seeds in the right place at the right time," he said. 

Zoe Birnie and Nicki Taws From Greening Australia emphasised the need for high quality seed in order to rapidly scale Snow Gum restoration.

 They shared their team’s efforts in establishing Seed Production Areas for Eucalyptus Pauciflora in key provenances (between Jindabyne and Goulburn NSW) in order to prevent over-harvesting of wild stands, overcome the low diversity of species in available seed, counter the low genetic diversity in harvested seed and help combat future seed supply shortages. 

Hydrology 

Leah Moore is a critical zone geologist coordinating hydrological monitoring and soil analysis at ANU. She taught us how it all flows underneath our Snow Gum stands.

On tree-covered alpine hillslopes, the soil is rich and hummus-thick, resembling "mud cake" (as Leah fondly remarks). The porosity of these soils is uniquely rockier with weathered substrate. This porous profile increases water up-take and allows for slow precipitation, capture and infiltration, allowing flow deep into the earth’s groundwater. This Alpine hydrology steadily provides year-round releases to our rivers, including into some of our most important headwater catchments. 

Australian Alpine hydrologic systems are currently in the international climate change spotlight because the conditions in our Alpine landscape represent ‘likely future alpine conditions’ for mountainous regions globally that presently have more permanent snowpack.

Leah's team is exploring important questions like whether climate change related water deficit is a primary driver for tree dieback and what effect pristine, dying back and long-term dieback sites have on carbon partitioning in soils. 

Her research, in partnership with others in Save Our Snow Gums, has discovered that when Snow gum’s bark hits a high moisture saturation point (>80%), longicorn beetle larvae cannot penetrate the bark, fail to take purchase and grow. This is a breakthrough finding that could shape the future of Snow Gum protection efforts.

Collaborative Research 

Save our Snow Gums is a multi-agency partnership group working hard to understand and mitigate loss of our Snow Gums.

They are affectionately known by internal members as sausage (SOSG). Not all heroes wear capes (you can find these Snow Gum lovers donning lab coats and environmental management uniforms) as they work to better inform future management practices. 

Professor Adrienne Nicotra (ANU Research School of Biology) presented their core research questions, before handing the floor over to a brilliant panel of student researchers from the ARC Linkage project. 

In addition to the discussions about technical solutions and interventions, the Summit also zoomed out to explore the importance of systems thinking, value determination and priority setting; including useful metrics for public engagement and decision making.

Dr Sarah Clement (Associate Professor in Environmental Policy) and Dr Pele Cannon (human ecologist and qualitative researcher working on environmental governance systems) at ANU delivered a joint presentation, which interrogated land managements' current reliance on broad-acre prescribed burning in bushfire management.

Their insightful presentation on public opinion and social license described the utility of a public dialogue method, which they have been exploring in recent study trials. The public dialogue method draws out an individual's depth of awareness and understanding about a particular issue, then prompts reflection.

Sarah and Pele said the public dialogue process helped people to better understand what they had previously perceived to be 'opposing arguments.' It shifted unfounded opinions (which often dominate the public sphere) toward nuanced and productive dialogue. They hope the model will be integrated into government agencies to better facilitate decision making. 

“People went from having a ‘strong opinion’ to making an informed judgement."

Pele and Sarah have also used an interviewing approach called the Q-method to investigate a range of perspectives held by land managers within organisations about the future of fire in the Alps, including exploring how the Resist, Accept, Direct framework could assist management. 

Photo credits: Matt Tomkins. 

Snow Gum Resilience

Lara Troy-O’Leary BA (Hons) at Australian National University is a proud Ngarigo woman who is currently researching snow gum growth rates and ages of dieback affected stands.

The central focus of her monitoring efforts is the often forgotten ‘Adaminaby’ or 'Weeping Snow Gum', known as Eucalyptus Lacrimans (to its hardcore fans).

This Snow Gum is showing promising signs of fast succession rates during beetle infestation. New seedlings appear to be favouring damp grassy plains areas – where the tree has greater chances of acquiring a high moisture content – rather than its usual range, in order to drown out larvae. Lara calls this amazing adaptation “Country caring for itself."

This exciting development could position Lacrimans as a model species for future research efforts. 

Time for a paradigm shift in land management 

Climate change and biodiversity decline, particularly on a continent like Australia, is inextricably linked to colonial dispossession and the land management practices that came with it. The Summit explored how we conceptualise our responsibility and relationship to Alpine landscapes in the context of the colonial root cause of the problem. 

Michael Hansby is a Senior Advisor in Cultural Forest Research & Management at Taungurung Land & Waters Council (TLaWC) and a Kamilaroi man with a professional background in biophysical science.

Photo credit Matt Tomkins

TLaWC has been leading the way on a rights-based approach that enables Taungurung People to resume their rightful place as decision makers for Country, working alongside scientists and local communities to implement good management interventions using collaborative decision making models.

Michael spoke about how TLaWC has been empowering the Taungurung community to re-establish bio-cultural relationships with Country, including on Deberra Biik (Alpine Country named for the Bogong moth).

Significant locations on Deberra Biik include Geebar / Mt Torbrek and Marnong / Mt Bulla (North Central and North East Victoria), which are traditionally places of connection and ceremony. These areas have important Snow Gum populations, but they have been significantly burnt by fire.

Due to the cessation of native forest timber harvesting, public land management in Victoria has arrived at an important crossroads. Michael said that the days of prioritising resource extraction and protecting isolated pockets of land are over. Now, there exists an important opportunity to completely "re-think how we manage our public land estate."

"Government has lacked vision regarding what our public land management could be. This is a timely moment for Traditional Owners to put their ideas forward – and we're starting to see what a biocultural land management system in Victoria could look like going forward," he said.

A biocultural lens could help land managers to embrace more holistic approaches to caring for Country, enabling 'whole of landscape' thinking, embedding principles of reciprocity, and honouring the interconnected network of relationships between flora, fauna, people and cultural practices that were developed over thousands of years of living on and with Country.

Michael advocated for a 'two worlds' approach that bridges western and Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing – and elevates cultural governance.

"It respects the integrity of both knowledge systems. It centres Country in all of our decision making. It's about a relational way of looking at managing the landscape – it's not reductionist or hierarchical, it's relational."

A biocultural lens allows the Taungurung community to work with the '3 domains' of Healthy Country: ancestral-spiritual, social-cultural and biophysical. The combination of spatial and scientific data with cultural knowledge, ceremony and story makes possible "collective storytelling about place" that can deeply inform land management practices.

"We can have a healthy mountain ash forest, old growth and pristine, but unless you've got the stories and ceremonies associated with that landscape – and people in the landscape practicing them – that's not Healthy Country."

The biocultural values identified by TLaWC are a result of "thousands of hours of yarning with the Taungurung community." They have recently informed a pilot 'healthy forest planning framework', designed to help guide more equitable decision-making processes with the state government moving forward. The pilot will help secure rights so that TLaWC can continue to Read Country and implement decisions for Deberra Biik: "the concept and ideas are very transferrable throughout the landscape."  

Michael explained the strengths of a two-way exchange between cultural knowledge and western empirical science when it comes to making the best decisions for Country.

“To solve this wicked problem [of climate change and frequent bushfires] we need as many tools as we can. The paradigms we’ve been currently working with are not working. We can't expect things to change if we don't change our behaviour in the landscape – and begin to put the health of Country first.”

 

Professor Jakelin Troy is a linguist and sociologist, the Director of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research at the University of Sydney, and a proud Ngarigo woman who belongs to Mountain Country where we gather. 

Jakelin's research is focused on researching and reviving Indigenous languages and the use of Indigenous research methodologies in community-engaged research.

She invited Jason Fieldhouse to join her and they shared with the audience a lesson in Ngarigo language, including gifting us the name for Snow Gums: "Warragung." 

They also contextualised where we were gathered. ‘Jinda’ means ‘star’ in Ngarigo language – and 'byne,' means 'made and come from'.

So, Jindabyne – where glittering constellations emerge from the ranges surrounding the Summit (including Mt Kosciuszko, or Kunama Namadgi in Ngarigo) – means "where the stars are made and come from."

Jakelin can trace her ancestors' history on this land via her great, great grandmother, whose people continuously occupied Mountain Country for tens of thousands of years – at least 20,000, according to Snowy Hydro, which recently completely destroyed rich Ngarigo cultural heritage at Lob's Hole Ravine (a sobering reminder of ongoing colonisation and the importance of making sure initiatives masquerading as 'solutions' don't recreate original harms).

Jakelin and Jason named Ngarigo Mountain Peoples' aspirations to regain a "place on Country", describing the original dispossession and current legislative barriers (including the deficiency of native title) that prevent them from living on Country and restoring their rightful occupation of the area. 

"We've mapped our Country with the Elders. It's a collaborative process – we've got a number of corporations that are working together and we're currently preparing for Treaty," said Jason.

"We have a strategy and we welcome Friends of the Earth and all the people assembled here to align with us, so that we can have an opportunity to contribute, because our Country is very unique – we're looking to have more place on it," he said. 

"National Parks and Wildlife – in the current structure – they don't need to work with us. So, we are petitioning for a better place on Country, so we can make a bigger contribution for the Snow Gums."

Jakelin spoke beautifully about her family history, full of women passing on knowledge about important sites and ancestral markers on Country. Unfortunately, as she says, these stories are also a testament to both "the erasure of Mountain Peoples and their continuous occupation of the top part of Ngarigo Country." 

"We were forced out of the mountains by the National Parks Act that established the Kosciuszko National Park," said Jacqueline. 

"We can't live on our Country, because you're not allowed to live on the country unless you've got a job up in the mountains. Fortunately, my mother built the first ski club at Thredbo – a lot of her friends and comrades were people were Europeans working on the ski slopes. She tells lovely stories about skiing with them," she said. 

"Since I was born, I've been a member of that ski club, 1960, so I would always have a place to stay on Country, but I'm lucky. My daughter has got a membership, her grandmother gave her a membership," she said. 

"I was an endurance horse riding champion for several years – we've rode, we've skiied, we've camped, we've come back to the mountains all the time, but we are expelled from the mountains – and Snowy Hydro has just destroyed our Country," said Jakelin. 

"Our aspirations are to do the kind of thing that I've just head [from TLaWC] about mob down in Victoria doing. It's to have this true partnership with the wider community, but also with government agencies. I am over the government telling us who we are."

Jakelin is generous and collaborative, referencing multiple other presenters' talks to describe the palpable sense of a shared 'felt connection', respect, and reverence for the sentience and value of the more-than-human world among attendees. 

She invites her daughter Lara Troy-O'Leary up to join them up the front.

"It's beyond joy that I feel, when my daughter talks about her work studying Snow Gums in the mountains," she said, "because the trees are our Kin."

Jakelin, Lara and Jason then shared a song "sung by the women of the Monaro." After a Czech settler remembered and recorded the melody in the 1800s, Professor Jakelin, along with other linguists and Ngarigo people, have reconstructed the lyrics over time.

The song was sung by a group of Mountain Ngarigo women, who were gathered under a full moon, near a bend of the Snow River, where the quartz stone riverbank sparkled like the glittering skyline above.

The song lyrics describe the Ngarigo women ("we, of the snow") calling in the snow for the season:

"Moon, bring the snow, bring the snow for us."

 

Lessons from the community

Margaret McKinnon, a research scientist and lead project manager with Upper Snowy Landcare Network, shared her wisdom from the science-based, community-led tree-planting efforts that the Landcare network facilitated to counter ribbon gum (or manna gum, eucalyptus viminalis) weevil-driven dieback that's occuring across the rural tablelands of the Monaro.

Between 201-2023, through struggles and triumphs, 45 biodiverse plots flourished. The group also produced valuable educational resources for farmers in the Monaro in order to guide further growing. 

Margaret says that while many partner organisations contributed to the successful project, she couldn’t have achieved this vision without a strong networks of caring volunteers. 

“We grew a community of people. People who would just show up and plant a lot of trees, between plenty of cups of tea. We watched the trees grow and die and then get planted again – a little bit better each time.” 

Jane Ormonde is a counsellor, writer and nature connection practitioner. She gave our congregation pause to digest and integrate the knowledges learnt over our Summit, facilitating a thoughtful exercise to guide us to contemplate our connection and solidify our personal direction toward acting for their protection.

This heartfelt session was an important container to share our passion and intentions for brighter futures, while also allowing us the space to sit in our grief for what has already been lost.

Primary school teachers Rosie Wositzky-Jones and Leigh Blackman say they have the “best job in the world," teaching students at Alpine community Dinner Plain's prep to 12 school. 

They were so inspired by last year’s Snow Gum Summit (hosted at the Community Centre that doubles as their winter schoolhouse) that they designed a curriculum to share what they learnt with their students.

By designing a 'junior Mountain Journal' (inspired by Mountain Journal produced by Friends of the Earth's Cam Walker)' and on Zoom calls with the experts, these young scientists were given space to express their love and curiosity for their favourite Snow Gums.

Observations and listening exercises helped the students deepen their connection to the land – and spread their passion for snow gums to their family and friends.

The students were so inspired by the scientists and community campaigners who navigated this great effort to safeguard snow gums for our future. The sentiment was wholeheartedly returned, with Dr Matt Brookhouse expressing how these kids have inspired everyone in the room – proving that you can make a difference at any age or stage in life’s journey.

Writer Anna Langford and journalist Anthony Sharwood believe in the power of storytelling, remarking (with good humour) that “people are drawn to stories rather than academic articles – sorry guys.”

With their incoming book, which will relate cross-generational perspectives on the potential of snow gum collapse, they hoping to "bring the stories and the science to a wider audience.”

Look for their book, 'The Last Snow Gum: Loving and Saving the Most Precious Tree on Earth – and Ourselves,' expected in stores by the end of the year.

Naming the cause

Sam Beaver from outdoors group Protect Our Winters (POW) delivered a powerful reminder about the glaring impact of fossil fuels accruing in our atmosphere.

"Australia can have a really outsized impact in addressing this global issue. We are a small country, but we represent about 5% of global emissions if you take exports into account – and we think that can make a pretty good dint in terms of protecting our Alpine areas [from escalating climate change impacts]," he said. 

POW are running a campaign to make polluters pay for the environmental destruction we are seeing take place.

“If you make a mess in our Alps, then should pay to clean it up. Our communities shouldn't have to pay to clean it up.” 

Sam said building broad-based power is a key way to progress outcomes in both climate mitigation and adaptation. 

"It's so clear, from all of the research that all of you in this room have presented, that there's so much opportunity for some incredible adaptation work in the Alpine region. We really need to start speaking louder to attract funding into that."

"A policy goal that we're working on is to get a sector-wide, national Alpine adaptation plan going. We'd like to hear from a lot people in the room about how we might work on that together." 

"Protect Our Winters really believe that the Outdoor and the Alpine community can meaningfully shift power in global climate change action."

"We are a massive constituency – we just need to make people feel like they are a part of the Alpine community, as much as anyone in this room."

Photo credit: Matt Tomkins

Sam said POW is keen to work with scientists present in order to get their research out to the media and the mainstream. He invites anyone who wants to help mobilise on the issues facing the Alps to reach out.

"If we don't work together, then we're in trouble. We need collaborate better outside of these rooms, with the general public, as well."

Navigating a "new operating context" – together 

Throughout the Summit, a grim but consistent message was that it was no longer enough to focus solely on preventing further change in our environments – we must also actively manage for the conditions that now exist. For Snow Gums, this means investing in adaptive strategies that can support their survival in a warming climate, strengthening monitoring, enabling rapid intervention, and embracing innovative approaches to restoration and resilience.

Consensus from our speakers was that even if we can stop climate change: the climate has already changed – and this recognition demands a fundamental shift in how decision-makers respond. 

Dr Matthew Brookhouse echoed this message in a final presentation to those gathered, emphasising that that "the system has changed."

"People have been modifying environments for a long time. We have been doing this work in the mountains for a long time. But there is a clear indication that, when temperature rise is on the table, the operating conditions have changed," he said. 

Matt is investigating whether working with other species within these ecosystems – like parasitic wasps and ants, which can cover a larger territory than humans – may be able to intervene and help reduce the number of phoracantha beetle eggs. 

"We can't be everywhere, but other players in the system," he said.

Matt wants to see investment from other stakeholders, like the plantation industry, in order to tackle this escalating problem, emphasising that the issue is how climate-related change can play out in environments (even if they are planted).

"My message to anyone in industry is to get on the front foot here. This kind of problem we see in the Snow Gums could be coming your way very soon." 

Matt wrapped up the conference by responding to this changed context by prompting reflection from the audience. Given the seriousness and scale of the predicament, he asked us, "what are we really holding onto?"

His heartening answer synthesised another strong theme recurrent throughout the conference: collaboration. 

He used the example of the contributions that Brindabella Ski Lodge made to his research team, by providing accommodation and temperature regulated spaces to store beetles and equipment, as an example of the significant contributions that each and everyone of us can make. 

"What we are holding onto, really, is each other. That is our best bet, right now. Every conversation, every partnership, every little bit that we each help – that's the solution." 

Hope lives in collaboration

In the spirit of this commitment to collaboration, Friends of the Earth facilitated an exercise to harness the collective wisdom of audience members at the Summit.

Those in the room agreed on four areas of collaborative work to pursue:

• Telling the story – e.g media on ABC Four Corners and other avenues that elevate this issue in the public sphere.
• Connecting research with action – feeding knowledge and outcomes from collaborative research like the ARC Linkage project back to land managers, so that they can take tangible actions.
• Citizen science efforts to help researchers connect seperate areas of work (e.g mycology and hydrology)
• Learn 'Snow Gum' in Ngarigo language: Warragung
• Support and resource the people already doing the work on solutions. 

Participants also committed to individual actions, written on 100 + 'Snow Gum leaves' that were returned at the end of the event.

These contributions are represented by the below illustration:

Leaf image designed by Alyssa Sullivan. 

Contributions from the audience and the content presented by incredible our program of speakers also helped inform our Snow Gum Summit Declaration 2.0, which you can read here. (Please email us if you'd like to provide your organisation's logo to sign on to the Snow Gum Declaration, so it can be used as an advocacy tool when meeting with decision makers: kim.croxfor[email protected]). 

Call to action

Many great minds came together over this incredible weekend to share their knowledge, deepen their connection to community and to Country and to forge new paths forward. We convened on solutions and named important truths.

The Summit present the leading research and developments in community action that are shaping long-term solutions for these fragile threatened ecosystems – and reinforced the urgency with which we must act to protect them.

Now it’s time for policy makers to heed the call from our second Snow gum declaration and follow the experts advice, so we can achieve long-term protection for these hydrological and ecological systems, which are essential to life in south-east Australia.

Friends of the Earth's Forests Collective invites researchers and participants to participate in listing Snow Gum Woodlands as a threatened ecological community under federal environment law.

A listing under the EPBC Act would require increased intervention on a federal and state level and also increase the profile of the issue, raising awareness and catalysing action. If you're a researcher keen to help put together this submission, please email [email protected] 

If you want to be kept up to date on actions in the public campaign to secure a listing, you can sign this open letter. 

FoE's Forests Collective sincerely thanks everyone who attended the Snow Gum Summit: the Next Ascent for their incredible contributions. We look forward to working together to progress collaborative solutions over the coming months.

We would also like to thank all those who donated and the following donors for their generosity in helping make this summit a success:
-Rendere
-Wild Country Environmental Fund
-Phillip Cornwell

See you at our next Summit!

You can help us convene similar events in future by donating to the Forests Collective here. 

Photo credit Matt Tomkins.

Photo credit Matt Tomkins.