Kelli Donovan is a Canberra based sustainable fashion designer and the founder and CEO of Pure Pod.  She designs ethical clothes and has a vision for a fashion industry that puts planet and people before profits.  Kelli has done her time in mainstream fashion and has seen firsthand the devastating effects that fast fashion has on both the environment and the people making the clothes.  Kelli sat down with Julie and Ryan to explain the ins and outs of ethical fashion, the difference between a fashion victim and a slow fashion enthusiast and her fashion centred environmental heroes.  

Sarah Reid is the ACT representative of the Australian Conservation Foundation Council and the newly elected President of the Conservation Council ACT.  Sarah is passionate about working with the local community to achieve the climate goals that will provide a better future for out children.  Sarah sat down with Julie and Ryan to chat about climate conversations and the importance of community environment groups.

Hannah Moloney is a landscape designer, permaculture educator and bestselling author.  Her enterprise ‘Good Life Permaculture’ and her recent book ‘The Good Life’ focus on education for a better world and radical hope in the face of a climate emergency. Hannah chatted online with Julie and Ryan about the intersection of gardening and activism, permaculture as a way of life and the joy of goats. 

Olympia Yarger is the Founder and CEO of Goterra, an insect farm based in Canberra.  Olympia started Goterra with a focus on insects as a sustainable livestock feed and soon realised that the amount of food waste required to keep the insects provided an opportunity for the business to transition into waste management.  Olympia chatted online with Julie and Ryan during the Canberra lockdown (audio quality warning!) and talked to them about maggot farming, the problems with food waste, her environmental heroes and what insects actually taste like. 

Siwan Lovett is the Director of the not-for-profit Australian River Restoration Centre, an organisation she established after undertaking a Winston Churchill Trust Fellowship in 2008. Siwan’s work focuses on research and science communication and developing future leaders. She has a PhD from the Australian National University in public policy, majoring in sociology and administration and is the founder of finterest, a website dedicated to telling stories about Australian freshwater fish. She sat down with Julie and Ryan to talk about radical hope, why more meetings should happen in kayaks and why we need to elevate feminine leadership traits in river management.

Rebecca Vassarotti is a member of parliament in the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly representing the ACT Greens.  In 2020 she was appointed as the Minister for Environment and Heritage, Minister for Homelessness and Housing Services, and Minister for Sustainable Building and Construction.

Charles Massy gained a Bachelor of Science at ANU in 1976 before going farming for 35 years, developing the prominent Merino sheep stud ‘Severn Park’.  Concern at ongoing land degradation and humanity’s sustainability challenge led him to return to ANU in 2009 to undertake a PhD in Human Ecology.  

Charles has authored several books on the Australian sheep industry including ‘Breaking the Sheep’s Back’.  His most recent book ‘Call of the Reed Warbler’ tells the story of a new and regenerative approach to agriculture and won the Scholarly Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the 2019 Educational Publishing Awards. 

Julie and Ryan catch up for a virtual Sunday afternoon hang out and chat about what they have learnt from the Environmental Heroes so far.

Karissa Preuss is the CEO of ACT Landcare, the peak body for Landcare groups in the ACT.  Karissa works with landholders wanting to manage their farm sustainably, community groups monitoring conservation efforts and stewardship groups improving ACT Government land.  She sees her role as supporting volunteers to care for country and is a firm believer that if we look after country it will look after us.

Mia Swainson is passionate about leadership and waste reduction.  She has worked in government, politics, international development and the non-profit sector and now runs her own boutique management consulting company. Mia is current Chair of the Canberra Environment Centre and of Zero Waste Revolution and her personal challenge to reduce the household waste of her family of five to almost nothing is proof that living a cleaner, greener and simpler life is within everyone’s reach. 

Mia sat down with Julie and Ryan to talk zero waste, passionate leadership and how all of the world’s problems could be solved by inner peace.