APCC14 Program

Download the draft program here:

Sunday 13 October: Early registration and Welcome Reception at the venue from 4-7pm.

Monday 14 – Wednesday 16 October: Conference sessions (welcome, opening address, presentations, posters and workshops*)

Tuesday 15 October: Conference Dinner**

Thursday 17 October: Field trips***:

Field Trip 1 (full day) – Wildflowers of the Granite Belt with Stanthorpe Rare Wildflower Consortium
Field Trip 2 (full day) – Bunya Mountains Experience with Bunya Peoples’ Aboriginal Corporation (BPAC) and Darling Downs Grasslands.
Field Trip 3 (half day) – Gummingurru Aboriginal historical site and Peacehaven Botanic Park.

*Workshops

We are currently planning to hold 2 sessions of concurrent workshops on the following themes:

Session 1:

Ex-situ conservation threatened plants through metacollections. OR
How to undertake threatened flora surveys. OR
Emerging minimum data requirements for environmental markets and mandatory climate and nature reporting (e.g. Nature Repair Market, Land Restoration Fund) to prove conservation benefits to threatened species.

Session 2:

How to raise political and community awareness of threatened plants and the actions required to save them. OR
Harnessing the power of citizen science for plant conservation.

**Conference Dinner

The Conference Dinner will be held from 7pm at Queensland Museum Cobb+Co. 27 Lindsay St, Toowoomba in the Shingle Roof space – see venue map here.
This event is supported by Alcoa and Cobb+Co.

Speaker: Hugh Possingham on “Making Smart Conservation Decisions“.

The venue is 1.8km from the conference location (walking via Queens Park and Botanic Garden).

Indicative menu (may be subject to change prior to the event):

Cheese platters and Turkish bread dip platters
BBQ buffet – with vegetarian potato bake and salads, corn and zucchini frittata, steak and chicken tenders.
Alternate desserts of pavlova or sticky date pudding
2 drinks included

Museum exhibits can be viewed by dinner goers (when not holding food or drinks, or seated for dinner), including this exciting botanical art exhibition:

Ellis Rowan: Colonialism and Nature Painting

Step into the captivating world of Ellis Rowan, a trailblazing 19th-century Australian botanical artist whose breathtaking watercolours and solo expeditions pushed the boundaries of art and exploration. This exhibition highlights Rowan’s remarkable travels from 1880 to 1910, taking you on a journey from Rockhampton to the Torres Strait and Papua New Guinea, through extraordinary paintings, sketches, diary entries, and photographs. Experience the beauty and detail of Rowan’s work through 28 original watercolour paintings depicting plants and flowers, paired with objects from the Queensland Museum Collection that explore how First Nations peoples used these plants in everyday life. The selection of artworks and objects invites viewers to consider Rowan’s encounters with First Nations people, Country, and Culture, and the circumstances that enabled her extensive body of work.

***Field Trips

You can now register to attend a field trip only via this online form

**Please read our phytosanitation guidelines here**

Please give them careful thought before and after you travel. The ANPC is a strong advocate for strong national and domestic plant biosecurity. We work to prevent the spread and exchange between locations of all plant diseases and pests. This 2024 conference will be held on the edge of the east Australian Myrtle Rust zone. You could easily pick up spores on your clothing or gear, even in Toowoomba. On field trips, we will also be visiting sites sensitive to species of Phytophthora root diseases, and places potentially containing these pathogens, and we must avoid spreading lineages of this and other soil-borne diseases. We seek your cooperation and commitment in ARRIVING CLEAN and LEAVING CLEAN.

What to bring: A hat, sunscreen, appropriate footwear (clean and free of dirt), water bottle, insect repellent, a jacket (the weather can change unexpectedly).

All field trips include transport, lunch and snacks. Please BYO water bottle to reduce plastic waste.

1/ Wildflowers of the Granite Belt with Stanthorpe Rare Wildflower Consortium (8am to 5:30pm)

Phebalium whitei – Paul Donatiu

Depart Toowoomba at 8am for a 2hr 10min bus trip (180km) to Girraween National Park located on the Granite Belt near the Qld/NSW border and south of Toowoomba. Girraween, meaning ‘place of flowers’, is a park of massive granite outcrops, tors and precariously balanced boulders with spectacular wildflower displays in spring. Golden wattles, yellow, red and purple pea flowers, dainty orchids and flannel flowers grow amid forests of red-gum, stringybark and blackbutt.

Arrive at 10.10am and meet volunteers from the Stanthorpe Rare Wildflower Consortium at the Day Use area, where there are shelter sheds and a toilet, a short distance from the National Park Visitor Centre. They will take you on a guided botanical walk along the Junction Track (5.2km return) to view the many wildflowers there including Allocasuarina rupicola (Near Threatened) and Phebalium whitei (Vulnerable). Lunch will be in the Park during the walk. Return to the Visitor Centre by 3pm for the bus trip back to Toowoomba.

Local wildflower books will be for sale including the Consortium’s Wildflowers of the Granite Belt for $5 which has photos of 280 of the most common local species.

The Junction Track is a Grade 3 walking track, suitable for most ages and fitness levels. Some walking experience is recommended. Grade 3 Tracks may have short steep hill sections, a rough surface and many steps.

Bunya Mountains by ZaqqyJam – Wikimedia commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59176114

2/ The plants of the Bunya Mountains and Darling Downs grasslands. (8am to 5pm)

Depart Toowoomba at 8am for a 2 hr bus trip to the Bunya Mountains, which rise over 1000 metres above the plains, harbour ancient rainforests and Bunya Pines (Araucaria bidwillii), and have been a gathering place for people for millennia. Experience the Bunya Mountains with the Bunya Peoples’ Aboriginal Corporation (BPAC) and discuss the Bunya Pine’s significance, and hear about traditional land management practices in the grasslands using fire. Walk to the Bush Uni, yarn about “Connection to Country”, “Why are our Elders important?” and “Why should we honour our Ancestors?”

Then take a rainforest walk with BPAC Rangers who will discuss some of the ways they have existed with nature and how plants were used in daily life.

On the way home, we will visit a remnant of the vast grasslands that once covered the Darling Downs. Growing on fertile clay soils, these grasslands have been extensively cropped and only 1% of their original extent remains. They harbour a diversity of plant life with over 300 plant species recorded including many that are rare and threatened. We will hope for a glimpse of Australia’s only native thistle the Vulnerable Austral Cornflower (Rhaponticum australe) and discuss the myriad issues facing these tiny grassland remnants and how research and management is contributing to their conservation.

The walk to the Bush Uni walk is approx. 10-20 Minutes each way. Distance-1km return. Access is along a formed earthen track with few obstacles and a modified surface. Sections may be muddy or have loose surfaces at times. Moderate slope descending and ascending. Suitable for most ages and fitness levels.

3/ Gummingurru Aboriginal historical site and Peacehaven Botanic Park (8.30am to 1:30pm)

Gummingurru stone arrangement – photo: Toowoomba Council

Tour Peacehaven Botanic Park and hear from Paul Carmody about the significance of the area to local First Nations People. Friends of Peacehaven Botanic Park will also have their local native plant nursery open for browsing. The park is set in the leafy suburb of Highfields, 15 minutes drive north of the Toowoomba CBD and includes a diverse collection of Australian native flora and other attractive botanic specimens, including rare and endangered plants. Many of the plants in the grounds are labelled for visitor information.

Directly to the west is Gummingurru where Paul will continue to take us on a guided site tour to learn about the stone arrangement cultural complex located there. He will describe and discuss the site’s significance including subjects such as: skin and kinship; lore and law; obligation, roles, and responsibility; belief systems; and conservation. Traditional land management practices, plant use (medicinal, tucker and cultural) and the eco-systems will then be explored. We will see the progress of three demonstration gardens established to showcase species from different culturally important ecosystems including endangered semi-evergreen vine thicket.