December 2024
And just like that we have reached the end of another year! 2024 has been a big year for our Society, with several conferences, workshops, networking events and more taking place. Ill start by saying a big congratulations to all our members who have won awards and prizes throughout the year. The most prestigious being the SETAC Exceptional Service Award which was very fittingly awarded to Munro Mortimer. Munro’s service, as long-standing treasurer of the Australasian Society of Ecotoxicology, then SETAC Australasia as well as SETAC Asia-Pacific has been invaluable for the growth of the organisation. Congratulations and thankyou Munro for all that you have done for the SETAC community. Full details of Munro’s award here SETAC Exceptional Service Award.
SETAC AU offers awards and prizes throughout the year for both student and non-student members to celebrate their achievements and assist them in attending conferences and other events. Congratulations to the following recipients of SETAC AU awards and prizes this year:
2024 SETAC Asia-Pacific Conference, 21-25 September, Tianjin, China
The 14th biennial SETAC AP Conference, “Promoting a Healthy Earth” took place in Tianjin, China 21-25th September. By all accounts it was a very successful conference with more than 1000 delegates attending and a fantastic scientific program including plenary and keynote speakers from within the Asia-Pacific Region (China, Japan and Australia) and further abroad from Europe and North America. Importantly, the conference was a fantastic opportunity to showcase SETAC to our Chinese colleagues which will hopefully lead to more engagement with them into the future.
EMERGING CONTAMINANTS WORKSHOP 2024 (UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE, ALEC LAB)
The annual Emerging Contaminants Workshop (ECW), hosted by Brad Clarke’s ALEC Lab at University of Melbourne was held on August 14th. SETAC AU were pleased to sponsor this event again, and it was great to see SETAC members both in person at the event, as well as attending online. The workshop theme was “Pollution and Health” and included a great line up of local and international speakers discussing the latest in PFAS analysis methods, environmental detection and effects measurement, environmental health impacts from wildfires, non-target screening and environmental cheminformatics and so much more. Well done to Brad and team for putting on another great ECW event and stay tuned for the next instalment of this series in 2025.
ALGA (NZ) 2024 – with SETAC AU Special Sessions
The Australasian Land & Groundwater Association (ALGA) held their conference, ''Emerging Frontiers: Navigating Risk, Innovation and Sustainability'' from 22-24 October in Auckland. SETAC AU partnered with ALGA for special sessions on “Plastics: Macro to Micro, Challenges and Solutions”, led by Sally Gaw (Canterbury University) and “Relevance of the ANZG Guidelines for Fresh and Marine Water Quality to New Zealand, with cross linkage to the NPS-FM”, led by Rick van Dam (WQadvice) and Jenni Gadd (Hydrotoxy). The sessions were well attended and it’s great to see some cross-pollination between SETAC members and our ALGA colleagues.
WHAT’S IN OUR WATER 2024
The 8th What’s In Our Water (WiOW) Symposium was held in Canberra 29-31 October, across two venues – the Black Mountain Discovery Centre and the Shine Dome. This is a long running series focused on waterway health and contamination issues which is organised by CSIRO with support from SETAC AU. The theme this year, “restoring water health through knowledge-based solutions” offered a cohesive, single-track program that commenced with a session on combining First Nations knowledge systems with modern science which really set the scene for the rest of the conference. Other themes included new approaches to assessing water and ecosystem health, source, fate and impacts of contaminants in waterways, holistic solutions for healthy water (insights from AMR and One Health) and transdisciplinary approaches in water science. Keynote speakers included Bryan Brooks, Dan Villeneuve, Carla Gee, Tiahni Adamson, Erica Donner and Brad Moggridge. We were also lucky to have a former South Australian Water Minister, Karlene Maywald provide an opening address reflecting on her experiences in water security and management, and the challenges (and opportunities) for change that come with difficult environmental situations (i.e. The Millenium Drought). The conference dinner was held in the esteemed Shine Dome and was a significant evening where Rai Kookana’s long list of achievements were celebrated and he was awarded the newly created What’s In Our Water Pathfinder Award, in recognition of his leadership towards restoring water health in Australasia. Well done to the conference co-chairs (Anu Kumar, Glen Walker and Louis Tremblay) and all of the conference organising committee for putting on such a fantastic event.
SETAC AUSTRALASIA 2025
Planning is now well underway for the SETAC-ACTRA joint conference in Wellington (New Zealand) 25-28th August 2025! Eugene Georgiades (NZ EPA) and Tarah Hagen (SLR Consulting/ACTRA President) will co-convene the event, with the conference theme “Building a lasting legacy: Our choice, their future”. The call for special sessions and workshops has now closed but keep your eye out for announcements early in the new year about abstract and registration opening dates (February). For further information check out the conference website and join the mailing list for conference updates.
SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AUSTRALIA (STA)
SETAC Council members have attended several STA events throughout the year, including The Parliamentary Friends of Science event in August (Julia Jasonsmith), The STEM Equity Monitor in September (Sarah McDonald) and the Leadership Dialogue in September (attended by Julia Jasonsmith).
The dates for Science meets Parliament 2025 have been announced and as such we have opened applications for the SmP Ambassador Award. Science meets Parliament (SmP) is the major event hosted by Science and Technology Australia (STA) and provides scientists with the opportunity to interact with politicians, policy makers and the media. Next year the event will run earlier than normal, on 12-13th February, 2025. So get your application in quick, as the SETAC SmP Award closes Monday 16th December 2024.
SETAC AU GOVERNANCE RESTRUCTURE
I was hoping to finish the year with the new SETAC AU governance arrangements in place, but we have experienced some minor delays which mean we are not likely to get everything completed until early in the new year. When the time comes, we will dissolve the current Council, and hold elections to establish a new Board of Directors and multiple sub-committees (i.e. membership, finance and risk, indigenous engagement, policy). If you have an interest in getting more involved with SETAC AU activities, I would encourage you to consider applying for a role when the new positions become available.
SETAC MEMBERSHIP
A reminder to everyone that SETAC now offers three levels of membership: Free, Explorer and Full, and membership fees vary based on student and income status (high, low-middle) of the country registered in. For all of us residing in the Asia Pacific region, membership payments are made in Australian dollars. An important point to keep in mind when renewing your membership is that to receive benefits such as discounted conference registrations and eligibility for awards and prizes or to join Council, you need to be a Full member (not Free or Explorer), and membership needs to be on-going for more than one year.
And lastly, I would like to wish all SETAC members and their families a safe and happy festive season. I hope you can all enjoy the holiday season with some down time away from work and that 2025 will be a prosperous year for all.