It comes in waves—an illustrated diary from Narelle Autio  

A tender, first-hand account of the devastating effects of the ongoing harmful algal bloom in South Australia from esteemed photographer and storyteller, Narelle Autio.

Words and photography by Narelle Autio

May 26th, 2025: We have had our first storm in months. I can’t remember when we last had this much rain. I love all the different moods of the ocean and today was a mess of whitecaps and spray. The sea churned, releasing months of pent-up energy as it hurled itself against the dunes.

27th May: This morning the sea is discoloured and frothy with foam. The windswept beach is clean but there are so many cuttlefish. The wild ocean has purged hundreds of them. As far as I can see, the shrivelled bodies of these fragile skinned creatures pockmark the beach. I have seen loads of bleached cuttlebones before, but nothing like this. I had been hearing concerning reports of leafy sea dragons and octopus washing up down south, but this was the first time I had seen anything like this on our beach. It was like a crime scene.

June 1st: Winter is here. The die-hard members of the Go-Go swimming group meet just after dawn. The sea finally feels cold, and we swear with delight as the temperature reads 13 degrees Celsius and our bodies go numb. The challenge to stay immersed is exquisite.

June 4th: After a few blustery days, this morning is breath-taking. The water is silky smooth, but I decide not to put my face in. The sea has a ruddy brown tint, and one of the swimmers has an eye infection, a potential consequence our last dip. As we float around, the morning chat is all things algae.

June 21st: A brave few in our swimming group hit the water at dawn, celebrating the winter solstice and the return to longer days. The cold fuelled exhilaration lasts all day, and I join the larger group for a repeat dip in the warm afternoon. We watch the sun fall, drink hot toddies on the beach and marvel at the beautiful weather this far into the year.

June 24th: Wildest wettest day of the year. 

June 26th: Post storm, the water is filthy. Swimming is out and walking the beach today is grim. I am devastated at the unusual number of marine creatures washed up. A beautiful fiddler ray, and loads of bottom dwelling sharks, countless fish and so many small eels, or snakes. I am not sure. I have never seen them before. I decide I need to keep a record and begin to take my camera down.

July 1st: Our local beach is a disaster zone, but I feel compelled to document the death. I have spent so many hours in the ocean creating art, it has been my life and gives me so much joy. I feel obligated. Somehow, I need to give back. Pay attention. The forced walks are never fun and each time I have an incessant cough and a nose that drips into the night.

July 5th: I had been so excited at the thought of swimming through winter but for now, those dreams are over. Tragically it is not because of the cold. Taking a stroll along our local beach is the stuff of nightmares. Dead weed has piled up and the stench of decay hits before we see the ocean. With each falling tide hundreds of marine creatures are left behind. Every few steps there is another, then another and another. Some of them reveal the agony of their death, marked by a haemorrhaging red blush. Their pale faces like underbellies stare up with a devastating accusatory grimace.

Slow-moving bottom-dwelling species like the beautiful Eagle ray and Southern fiddler seem particularly affected. Benthic sharks, sea dragons, cephalopods, crustaceans, fish, crabs, shells, worms and sea grasses are being found in mass wash-ups. Larger sharks including the Great White are dying, beaching themselves or behaving erratically due to the algae’s neurotoxins.

All that mild weather and beautiful swim conditions we were celebrating had been hiding a horror story. The suspected cause is a microscopic algae, Karenia mikimotoi.

July 7th: I have heard the harmful algal bloom  (HAB) destruction described as ‘apocalyptic’ or of having impacted ‘from worms to whales.’ Each day a different species washes up. First it was the cuttlefish then weeks later, the rays and small sharks. Today there are loads of leather jackets, mostly juveniles. Yesterday it was soft phallic-like creatures, strange things as if from another dimension. Wave after wave after wave of dead marine life. It seems every creature has been impacted. Not only destroying the food chain but creating wastelands of entire ecosystems.

The Australian government has so far resisted calling this a national disaster. For a country that considers the ocean and beach lifestyle as the pinnacle of its tourism campaign, this opinion feels deliberately obtuse or wilfully ignorant.

July 9th: The algal bloom has expanded and now affects or is affecting almost the entire metropolitan coastline. It feels dire, the weekly satellite reports reveal the red stain lingering around the coastlines. The algae seems to bang from side to side, stuck in the pocket of Gulf St Vincent. Pushed by currents and prevailing winds the microscopic organism spreads death wherever it goes. Day by day, it fills me with sadness just to look at the sea.

July 12th: I take a road trip across the gulf to York Peninsula. My partner Trent comes along for the ride. Every beach we stop at there is decaying or dying creatures, but the most shocking discovery is a three kilometre walk through thousands of cuttlefish, rotting alongside a stinky foam filled sea. Even more worrying, we are in Spencer Gulf, not far from the world-famous giant cuttlefish breeding grounds. I am devastated that the bloom has travelled this far.

July 15th: The Fleurieu Peninsula is home to several marine sanctuary zones and the amount of dead sea life collected on the rocky shore of Marino Beach is overwhelming. I am thankful that Trent is along today to lug the camera gear. At the end of an exhausting day of scaling cliffs and rock hopping, we discover a dolphin high up on the rocks. In this spectacular setting, the tight sun blackened skin and blushed red underbelly, is an incongruous sight. And disturbing. We have been told the algae only affects gill breathing animals. Are the dolphins starving?

July 17th: While Sydneysiders are being wowed by the return of migrating humpback whales, South Australians are witnessing body bags on their morning walks. Today another deceased dolphin washed up on a suburban Adelaide beach.

With all that is happening around the world, it would be easy to push this aside. But having witnessed the carnage along all our local beaches, this feels catastrophic on a global scale.

Every dead sea creature has become a symbol. Proof of our ocean in crisis.
These animals and our ecosystems need us, but more importantly... we need us. We need to understand we are part of that ecosystem. In a galaxy of four billion stars this is likely the only planet that can sustain life. We don’t have a backup. Imagine if we could find the power and the intelligence to redirect the trillions that are currently fed to the global war machines and push it towards a cleaner sustainable future.

July 21st: Our hearts are broken. For five months we have watched tide after tide dump the consequences of inaction in our faces. Every few days, our once pristine coastlines are lined with marine creatures shrivelling up in the sun, in heat that should never have touched their magnificent bodies. Our seas are dead and decaying, void of life. Since March, we have been pleading for the rest of the country to take notice, for the federal government to help in some way... to pay attention.

July 22nd: Today it is a relief to hear some funding has now been allocated, but money alone is not enough. Climate change is causing catastrophic problems in every part of the planet. It is now an inescapable fact. The natural world is showing signs of immense strain. The continuous pollution we pump into our atmosphere, our rivers and our oceans have consequences. This cannot be ignored or denied. We are a filthy species and do not step lightly or with respect. Our misguided ideas of domination and abuse of every resource without regulation, has led to the destruction of much that we need to survive. We have an ocean over here that is dying proof.

July 27th: 
Dear feds,
If the past few months haven’t felt bad enough, today left us completely broken. This morning, we were distraught to find a dying dolphin on our local beach. Unable to be saved, it was later euthanised by Marine Parks and Wildlife...a few days ago, just a short walk from there, it was a six-foot shark. In between, instead of sand between our toes, we had sludge that made our eyes water.

All the science is telling us what is happening to the planet and more needs to be done to curb emissions and pollution. This catastrophe in South Australia is a window into our future. In fact, ocean warming is already here. We need decisions now that allow for our kids to experience live animals, clean oceans and healthy reefs.

Not far from where I live is the only metropolitan based dolphin sanctuary... In Australia and the world. Surely this is a national emergency.

2nd August: For the past few days there has been a tangled mess of worms and weed left exposed at low tide. Slippery, pink and red intestine like clumps, hundreds of them slopping around in the shallows. This morning, I walk along the foamy high tide throwing back writhing, gasping worm eels. The situation is heartbreaking. These animals are considered ecosystem engineers, helping to maintain and structure healthy marine environments. They also form part of an important food chain. If there are any fish left, what will they eat?

10th August: Yesterday was such a beautiful day. Unusually warm for winter, the ocean was still, uncanny and reflective. In recent days our beach has been relatively clean. As the sun began to set, Trent and I walked our dog along the shoreline. With the algae around, dog walking has not been recommended. Like the respiratory problems we have been experiencing, there are reports of canine sickness. She also has a terrible habit of treating the beach like a smorgasbord. Sadly, the current menu has been extensive and rotten.

11th August: The number of dead marine life has fallen, and I am optimistic maybe, just maybe, the worst is over... but no. Yet again the sea is fouled by the telltale scab of scummy foam. The algae is back. This has been described as pulsing. Our hearts fall. On calm days, the casualties remain hidden under the waves, but on the next blustery day the sea will purge and vomit up the next round.

13th August: Over and over, wave after wave, today it is the bivalves’ turn. In numbers too many to count, cockles of all shapes and sizes and shattered razer-fish lie like broken hearts along the beach. Scientists are warning that this bloom could cause local extinctions of certain species. With this much trauma to the food chain, I am not surprised. Our little patch of paradise seems lost.

17th August: Today was one of the worst yet. Hundreds of inky-skinned deep-sea flat-head lie among the worms. Thousands of shells and a mountainous sea of weed create a stinky mess. Large bottom dwelling fish with disgusted mocking mouths stare at us along the littoral line. How can we have allowed this to happen? These are fish we have never seen before, and this is only a small percentage of what the ocean shows us. I can’t begin to imagine the devastation that will never be revealed.

August 20th: “If we save the sea, we save our world” David Attenborough.

A healthy ocean is key to our future, and this is becoming significantly more important as we tackle emissions and climate pollution. Since the beginning of time, we have abused our beautiful oceans. Under the waves, out of sight out of mind, we have dumped rubbish, pumped our effluent and allowed industry to contaminate with storm water and agricultural run-off, full of excess nutrients and toxic chemicals. If this was not enough, our insatiable appetites have bolstered a massive seafood industry, and large corporations are overfishing and destroying vital seabeds with destructive and unsustainable bottom trawling.

It has been discovered that our oceans’ underwater ecosystems, kelp forests and sea grasses, hold more carbon than forests on land. The sea regulates our climate, contributes to the oxygen we breathe, and millions of people rely on it for food. The coasts are important to our culture and undeniably our lifestyle, it is the ultimate life force that connects us all.

22nd August: Last night at a local community information centre we heard from scientists finally discussing solutions. The situation is depressingly bad for the near future, but there is hope long term. Our gulf is sick, warm ocean temperatures and nutrient pollution were the tipping point. Once filled with filter feeding oysters and covered with sea grasses, the sea might have been able to fight off this algal bloom years ago, but not now. Our ignorance and mistreatment have cost us. We need urgency and bold thinkers. If not, what a criminal shame for our children.

So here we are. Undeniably, humans have influenced this spiral of destruction, and our governments subsidise billion-dollar corporations to continue despite the evidence. As taxpayers we support them as they destroy our only home, while they themselves hoard millions and build bunkers to escape what they are causing.

August 26th: This week some of my swim group ventured back into the sea. So desperate to swim, they search out the days and tides that bring in less soupy water. I can’t bring myself to join them. Nothing feels normal.

August 30th: The foam is back like never before. Our local beach looks like a giant méringue. Dirty bubbles fight loose and hit me in the face as I try to make sense of it with my camera. I spend much of the time up to my shins in sludge. I cough for most of the day and that evening I feel like I need to scratch my skin off, my feet are so itchy, and my eyes are closed with irritation.

September 1st: Spring in the air, the sun is warm, and the sea looks so welcoming. It is a strange feeling to feel depressed at the idea of beautiful weather and summer just around the corner... The cooler winter months don’t seem to have negatively impacted the algae as suggested, and we know the warming conditions will just invigorate the bloom once more.

Today it is an army of giant spider crabs, their bright orange armour offering no protection. 

The battle continues, and it is being lost.

We are grateful to Narelle Autio for making this deeply moving piece and to Trent Parke for his portrait of Narelle that opens this Wilderness Journal. 

Narelle recommends checking out the organisation Oz Fish, which works in fish habitat restoration in South Australia. 

She is working on a major new work with Trent Parke to mark the opening of Powerhouse Parramatta in NSW, scheduled for late 2026 and she is giving a talk at the NGA with Trent next month. Please follow @chillioctopus on Instagram for more of Trent and Narelle's work. 

The rivers I remember

Words and photographs by Glenn Walker; interview by Meg Bauer; portraits by Ingvar Kenne

“The Franklin River and Tassie forests are such important campaigns and so fundamental to the history and fabric of the Wilderness Society—but we’ve also won so many equally significant campaigns that have been forgotten. Or if not forgotten, very few remember.” 

Glenn Walker was a campaigner at the Wilderness Society from 2007 to 2020. He's now Head of Nature at Greenpeace. As part of our 50th Anniversary series, Glenn reflects on the years he spent fighting for the wild rivers and forests of the north. Wild then wild now. 

I grew up on a farm outside of Canberra, so I lived between the city and the farm. Every weekend, every school holiday—and sometimes I was taken out of school—I’d go to work on the farm, which had beautiful mountain ash forests on it. So at an early age, I established a pretty strong connection with the bush.

I didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up, but I stumbled into university and picked the classes that had field trips because I liked being outdoors. And, invariably, that led me to do Environmental Studies. And through that, I became aware of a local campaign to protect bushland that was under threat from a road in Canberra (O’Connor Ridge, just behind Black Mountains: the ‘Save the Ridge’ campaign). I used to walk through that bit of bush, and got heavily involved in the campaign to protect it, which we lost.

Being part of that campaign was a process of radicalisation, I guess—and becoming clearer about what I wanted to do. And through becoming an advocate, I became more aware of other campaigns that were happening around the country.

At that time, the Tassie forest campaign was in full swing—it was the 2004 election where Mark Latham made a commitment to protect these forests. I remember traveling up to Sydney to a Wilderness Society event at Sydney Town Hall, where Heidi Douglas's film was shown (Tasmania's forests: A Global Treasure, A National Responsibility). There's this part of the film where there's dead critters, and I just remember being moved by that—and also the approach of the Wilderness Society, to be forceful in their advocacy about what needed to be done.

After that, I went traveling for a couple of years in South America, and got involved in local campaigns to protect glaciers from being blown up by mining companies, and protecting the Valdivian rainforests in southern Chile.

I came back and decided I wanted to work for an NGO, so I moved to Brisbane and took a job at Queensland Conservation Council where I was rivers campaigner, before a role came up at the Wilderness Society at the start of 2007. 

When I first started with the Wilderness Society, I did everything. I would go and represent the organisation in meetings with ministers and companies; I would help coordinate and manage volunteers. I would go and take photos of places myself, to then pitch stories to journalists. I would write the media release and call-around to radio stations. If we needed campaign material, I would design it myself, go to the printers myself, put it in letterboxes myself. I would use GIS mapping to help with some of our analysis of the campaigns we're working on. Do the policy, do the research. 

Back then, we would still send faxes to newsrooms. And newspapers were still really important. People still read them. I could go and pitch a story to journalists based on the photos that I was taking or that we had, and that would get us front page stories or double-page spreads.

I knew that that imagery was critical to getting media stories up and communicating what it was we were trying to protect. But we were working on remote areas, particularly with the river campaigns—there was no imagery or very little imagery available. So I would go on long trips to get photos for the campaign, sometimes finding myself alone at, you know, 4 or 5 a.m. by a billabong full of crocodiles, hoping to get a nice shot.

At the time I remember the Wilderness Society was one of the first organisations to have what we called at the time a ‘cyber action’—where supporters would email politicians—and it was incredibly effective for that period. I think we got around 4,000 emails over a weekend sent to Peter Beattie, the Premier of Queensland at the time, and that got us a meeting with him on the Monday or the Tuesday. Politicians are desensitised to that tactic now.

A key part of the work, too, was marked by the thumping majority win of Campbell Newman, who then set about tearing down a lot of environmental protections in Queensland—including weakening deforestation laws. I remember the Campbell Newman election because he promised to do a lot of bad things. I think I counted 10 or 11 times that, dressed as a Wild Rivers platypus, I interrupted one of his press conferences, singing a song about protecting wild rivers. And every day, the journalists would be asking Where's Wally? and that became a real feature of the election campaign. It was quite funny.

Wenlock river
A really proud moment for me was the campaign to save the Wenlock River in Queensland from Cape Alumina’s bauxite mining proposal. The mine would have destroyed savannah woodlands and some incredibly rare springs, and also damaged the Wenlock River itself.

It was proposed on the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve, which meant that we were in immediate allyship with Terri Irwin, because Steve Irwin had passed away by then. Actually the reserve was created with funding from the Howard government (interestingly), following Steve Irwin's death.

But anyway, this company was full tilt pushing for the mine, and we worked with some of the local Indigenous groups and the Irwin family to prevent it happening. It was a pretty big public campaign in Queensland at the time.

At one point I took two state MPs on a visit, so they could go back into Queensland Parliament and speak about their experience, and be advocates for the campaign. The Wenlock River is known on Cape York as having the highest density of crocodiles—that's why the Irwin family was interested in having a wildlife reserve there.

So I took them out with one of the rangers from the Wildlife Reserve in a tinny at night to go spotlighting for crocs. And there were lots—we spotted about 20 over a relatively short span of the river. But the boat got stranded on a sandbank. We hit a sandbank and then the ranger said, Sorry guys, I’m going to have to jump out to get this boat going! and jumped into the river without saying anything else.

The two MPs screamed at the top of their lungs—they were so freaked out, having just seen so many crocodiles. The ranger wasn't afraid; he’d spent his life on Cape York! But then they had a story to tell—that was something they could relate back in their conversations with colleagues, and it helped give colour and life to the river. And once you start talking about crocodiles, you talk about the conservation of the area and that there's a mining company that wants to completely destroy it, and so on.

Ultimately, we used the Wild River Declaration of the Wenlock River to stop the mine—because that created a buffer zone around the banks of the river and the springs that made the mine unviable. So that Wild River declaration killed the mine permanently. Sometimes you don't get such decisive wins—but this was really decisive. The mine was stopped, and that area is now protected. 

That was a really big win, and was really prominent in the media—particularly in Cairns, but also in south east Queensland. Having the Irwin family involved helped with that. Russell Crowe was also a champion for the campaign. He went on the Letterman show in the US about it.

The palm cockatoo was an icon species we used in the campaign, because it fed in the rainforest by the banks of the river and the springs, and it nested in the savannah woodlands nearby. Shortly after we won the campaign, I took a group of volunteers on a trip on the Cape for a couple of weeks. And I remember sitting by myself on the banks of the Wenlock, and a couple of palm cockatoos came and visited, said hi and were squawking and then flew up the river. It was a really nice moment for me, and that's why I got the tattoo on my leg.

I also took a photo of a palm cockatoo that ended up on the front page of the Cairns Post one day with the title: ‘Cockies or Jobs’. There was a big double-page spread with an op-ed from me and an op-ed from the CEO of the mining company, with our opposing views and visions of what should happen in the region. So the palm cockatoo just has a lot of significance for me and, you know, it's a cool bird—it drums with sticks!

Channel Country 
At the time, we were trying to get rivers protected from mining and damming and irrigated agriculture. We ran a campaign to get the Channel Country rivers protected—which is like a third of Queensland. The water flows into Lake Eyre and they're the most variable river systems in the world in terms of water flows. We did a lot of work with the Indigenous groups across the area and there was really strong support.

We helped facilitate meetings of Indigenous groups to get together and discuss it, and we worked with a lot of the cattle graziers in the area who were also really supportive of having the rivers protected, because their livelihoods relied on it. And I remember doing a trip there with a couple of Wilderness Society people and The Australian newspaper—which was incredibly helpful and useful because again, it ended up on the front page of The Australian: graziers in particular wanting to protect their river systems from fracking and dams and irrigated agriculture.

I was lucky enough on that trip, and another trip, to see those rivers in full flight. Every 10 or so years—it's variable—often on the back of an ex-tropical cyclone or a large low in the Gulf of Carpentaria, rain hits the top of the catchment and travels south. It travels slowly across the landscape and the landscape just comes to life. It goes from a very arid environment to one absolutely booming with life.

I remember sitting on the Cooper Creek, watching thousands and thousands of birds fish—the river was just absolutely full of fish—and then driving through flood plains with waist-high green grass and red sand dunes full of wildflowers. It’s an extraordinary place.

And as a result of that work and the work of all the other good people and communities, we got those rivers protected. Interestingly: Campbell Newman, when he was later elected, removed those protections—but promised to put in something in its place. And to cut a long story short, it was just last year when those rivers were finally given protection from oil and gas.

But this work we did in 2009, 2010, was the forerunner to that. It just took another 15 years to get it properly locked in place.

Baffle Creek
At some stage the Queensland government proposed a dam on the Baffle Creek, which is one of the last free-flowing rivers on the Queensland coast. And we responded really quickly, myself and Rupert Quinlan, who I was working with closely at the time. We got in the car, drove up to the community, met as many people as we could, took a lot of photos. We helped mobilise the community, and got a whole bunch of local media stories up—which then led to state-wide stories.

And within a matter of months, the dam proposal was dead. It was a lightning-fast campaign to kill a dam on a really important river.

There were other dams—in Queensland in particular, and the Northern Territory. A whole lot of work was done on river protection over many years. 

Not just conservation: land justice 
There were challenges too, in these campaigns. To be really honest, particularly in the Cape, there were some pretty strong Indigenous voices who were not very keen on conservation. So there was a public debate about the role of conservation in these remote areas, and we were in the spotlight of that. So that was tricky, particularly because it was often reported in a very one-sided way—when in reality we were working really closely with a lot of Indigenous communities on the ground.

The Wilderness Society played a central role in what I think is actually one of the most amazing combined conservation-and-land-justice outcomes in Australia's colonial history. And that is that we advocated, for decades, for the government to purchase cattle properties on Cape York and to hand the land back to Traditional Owners.

And as part of those negotiations, there were nature reserves created. I was part of the negotiating team that helped create a new act called the Cape York Peninsula Heritage Act. That helped create the first form of Indigenous-owned National Park, which led to a whole bunch of new Indigenous national parks and land being handed back across the Cape—I think about 2 million hectares. There were many others that did much more than me, but it was a central part of the Wilderness Society Queensland’s work at the time when I was there. And it's a story not told much within the Wilderness Society, let alone Australia—but it's a huge inspiring success story.

A lot of it started with a Cape York coastal station called Starcke in the nineties, which the government were talking about promoting to Americans to purchase for a game reserve for rich people. We worked with the Juunjuwarra people to prevent that sale and have 225,000-hectare property returned to its rightful owners, the Traditional Owners. And another proposal was to create a space-base on this incredible white sand dune system at Shelbourne Bay, on Wuthathi Country.

They were kind of like the early flashpoints which then led to a reaction and then a proactive campaign to ensure that when a cattle property was up for sale, that it was bought by the government and handed back to its the Traditional Owners. And it’s still happening—there's still a program of delivering that. [The Queensland government most recently handed back Western Cape York to the Mokwiri Aboriginal Corporation in 2024; Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park to the Waanyi People in 2023; Far North Cape York to the Gudang/Yadhaykenu, Atambaya, and Angkamuthi (Seven Rivers) peoples in 2022; and the Daintree rainforest to the Eastern Kuku Yalanji people in 2021.]

When working alongside Traditional Owners, it’s vital to sit down, listen and understand what they need—figure out where there's mutual interests, how their interests can be supported and how to maximise overlap. We knew that advocating for conservation in northern Australia couldn't just be about protecting places as far as putting regulations in place. These places also need active management—because the way fire is managed in the north needs to be reset to a way that's much more attuned to the ecology. And Indigenous land managers have very particular skills there because they've co-existed with that landscape. There's a strong social justice need to support Indigenous people getting back on land and being properly funded and supported to do the incredibly important work they do looking after Country.

So we advocated for Indigenous rangers, alongside Indigenous groups, and were successful. We got a commitment for 100 Rangers and that was followed through, and then worked with a range of groups over many years on the hand-back of land on Cape York, on river protection, on deforestation—on many issues. But I guess the approach was always: start with a dialogue, and understand that we have a responsibility to help deliver social justice outcomes in tandem with conservation outcomes. 

Tackling Queensland deforestation 
Another big Queensland campaign was restoring and improving the state’s deforestation laws after they'd been gutted by Campbell Newman. Yeah, that was a really tough campaign. But we put deforestation back in the national spotlight in a big way. We got a lot of media—a lot of attention on the issue. And we got the laws strengthened.

Walking on deforested land—I mean, it's horrific. It's really heart-breaking seeing what was a healthy, thriving ecosystem being destroyed and flattened. You remember walking through a healthy forest and seeing wildlife there, and now there's flattened and burnt bush, or a road, or mining infrastructure, or weeds species that are pasture for cattle. 

There's still a lot of work to do, because there's a couple of loopholes still sitting in there, but the deforestation laws are massively improved from when Campbell Newman was Premier.

When we were working on the deforestation campaign, we were looking at the issue holistically in terms of needing to end deforestation, but also needing to restore the Australian landscape—because that's critically important for biodiversity and climate. 

So we called for state-based and federal funding, and took a pretty audacious idea to the Queensland Government to create a big land restoration fund. We thought ‘this is way too ambitious, but let’s pitch $300 million for the government to establish a fund.’ We went and pitched it to some very senior politicians in Queensland, and they came back two or three days later and said: ‘How about $500 million?’ And that became their election platform, and they won and that fund was put in place. That’s still an important fund, and a big win and change for how land restoration was viewed in Australia. 

Reflections
An observation across all the campaigns I was involved in—including James Price Point and the Great Australian Bight, though I was by no means leading these—is that working with affected communities is incredibly important, both to support those communities and to win the campaign. Having authentic voices talk about what their local environment and what places mean to them is incredibly powerful.

Another lesson was just to be fearless with our advocacy, about what we were trying to protect and what we stood for. We were the voice for nature and for wildlife and we couldn't stand down on that, and people respected us for it.

And lastly, by using imagery and powerful messages, you can really cut through to people's hearts in a way that motivates them to be on-side. I do still think about those past campaigns, and how important it is to appeal to people's deep values and hearts.

Often we as a movement rely on rational arguments and science to try to win, and that's important. I think it's also really important to not lose emotions-based campaigning, as that motivates people deeply.

Having spent a lot of time in Queensland, I think back to one of my heroes Judith Wright, who was a poet and campaigner. She campaigned for the Reef and wildlife and the sand islands off Queensland, and used her poetry and art to carry those campaigns a long way, along with other artists. I know we live in different times, but I do sometimes wonder whether we too heavily weigh economic and scientific arguments instead of just taking people to a place and making them contemplate the natural world and their place in it.

It’s important that we don’t lose sight of our ability to capture the hearts and minds of people by doing something captivating and interesting that’s a bit edgy, but also really effectively tells a story. 

The Wilderness Society thanks Glenn Walker for telling his story of working with the organisation and for sharing the photographs he made during that time. 
Thank you to Ingvar Kenne for photographing Glenn for Wilderness Journal. 

 Algae: from microscopic to monumental

Words and microscopic photographs by Dr Penelope Ajani; portraits by Andrew Cowen

A marine biologist, Dr Penelope Ajani works at the intersection of science and art. Her micrographs of algae reveal the intricate nature of individual cells, ‘an architecture measured in microns’. Most algae are harmless and vital for our planet, she says. However, a very small percentage produce toxins for defence, competition, stress response, or as by-products of metabolism. As we are witnessing in South Australia, the ecological and economic impacts of harmful algal blooms can be massive. 

I really cannot say that I always wanted to be a marine biologist. I grew up in the suburbs of Melbourne, and while I loved family beach holidays and collecting treasure along the shoreline, it wasn’t until I got to university that I found my passion through the lens of a microscope. The intricate and astounding beauty of the ocean was revealed to me; it didn’t just change how I saw the world - it changed my place in it.

One cup of ocean water contains millions of microalgae (phytoplankton), which I would argue are the most beautiful, diverse and important organisms on Earth. They are in our hair when we swim in the ocean; they provide food to our important fisheries; and we can thank them for every second breath we take – incredibly, they produce 50% of the oxygen we breathe! And yet, while unknown and invisible to most, once magnified, microalgae are the most astounding life forms I have ever seen. I am passionate about connecting others to this hidden world through my photography. 

My work involves isolating single microalgae cells from the ocean and with the extraordinary  precision of light and electron microscopy, it’s then that you are able to  capture the haunting elegance of the microscopic. By shifting the scale and placing these organisms in an artistic setting, micrographs showcase the patterns, pores and geometric filigree of these foundational lifeforms, an architecture measured in microns yet monumental in beauty and significance.

Whilst beautiful to the eye, some species of microalgae can form harmful algal blooms (HABs) that have consequences for both the ecosystem and human health. Certain species produce toxins that can accumulate in marine animals (oysters, fish etc.) and can be transferred to birds and mammals, including humans. This devastation is what we are currently seeing in South Australia.

As a marine scientist, I know that global warming is altering weather patterns, changing ocean currents and shifting phytoplankton communities. HABs are also linked to increasing nutrient loads, marine heat waves and the modification of our coastal water bodies. Harmful algal events and their potential risks are a growing concern under climate change.

Thank you to Dr Penelope Ajani for sharing her work and to Andrew Cowen for spending the morning with Penelope and Wilderness Journal on her local Sydney beach making these photographs. 
Keep in touch with Penelope's work at penelopeajani.com and her upcoming Sydney exhibitions: 
Selected works, View of the Harbour, Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf, opening 26 November 2025.
Solo Exhibition, Blooming Algae: from microscopic to monumental, Garden Gallery, Royal Botanic Gardens, opening 20 March 2026.