Michael Cornish is the Policy Lead at the Australian Land Conservation Alliance (ALCA), Australia’s peak body for private land conservation. In this role, Michael collaborates and advocates on a wide range of Federal, State and Territory legislative and policy issues to support ALCA’s member organisations to conserve, manage, and restore nature on privately managed land. Recently, Michael helped to spearhead the SA environment sector's efforts to amend and improve the SA Biodiversity Act. Prior to joining the environment sector, Michael’s professional experience has ranged across law, economics, international aid, academia, and Australian and international politics. Michael and his family live in the Adelaide Hills and he is parochially proud of South Australia and its natural environment.

Peat Leith leads CSIRO’s Valuing Sustainability Future Science Platform and is project lead for the Sustainability Science Scaffolding Project. His research background as a social scientist in natural resource management across marine and coastal zone management, agriculture has focussed on how science can effectively underpin sustainability outcomes.

Michael MacDonald completed his PhD at the University of Tasmania in 2001. He moved to the UK and started working at the RSPB's Centre for Conservation Science in 2005, remaining there until returning to Australia in 2025. He worked on a wide range of research projects in his time at the RSPB, with an early focus on the performance of agri-environment schemes, and then leading work on the delivery of ecosystem services by nature conservation management. For the past several years he led the RSPB's science in Wales, which included projects on the impacts of offshore renewable energy, and conservation of iconic species such as Black Grouse.