Sotiris Vardoulakis  0:00  
Good morning everybody. Good morning or good afternoon, depending on where we are based at. Welcome to the inaugural HEAL 2021 Conference, Healthy Environments and Lives. It is a two day conference, the inaugural Conference of the Heal Network. Thank you for joining. Today's the first day of the Conference. We have a great programme, great lineup of speakers and panellists over the next five hours or so. I'm Sotiris Vardoulakis. I'm Professor of Global Environmental Health at the Australian National University, and the Director of the HEAL Network. It is my pleasure to chair the first session of today's programme. I live on Ngunnawal Land, and pay my respects to the traditional custodians of this beautiful Country and I would like to acknowledge the Elders past, present and emerging. We will have the formal Opening of the Conference in a moment, but I would like to start with some housekeeping arrangements first. So first of all, please turn your microphones off if you're not the speaker. You can keep your camera on but please note that all sessions of the Conference are recorded. 
If you don't want to be recorded, you can just turn your camera off and can stay online. Please put your comments on the Zoom chat chatbox. Tell us where you are based at, your affiliation, your name, the traditional Land you're calling from. If you are on Twitter, please use the hashtag which is just over me here, and tweet about the Conference as we go along. I can see that there are many attendees. We have already nearly 200 attendees online, there are more people joining. And without further ado, I would like to start with the with the opening addresses we have. We're honoured to have a number of very distinguished colleagues will give the addresses to start the conference. First of all, it's my great honour and privilege to introduce Associate Professor Linda Ford, Senior Research Fellow at the Northern Institute at Charles Darwin University, the College of Indigenous Futures, Education and Arts. Aunty Linda is the Chief Investigator in HEAL and she will deliver the Acknowledgement of Country today. Thank you very much.

Linda Payi Ford 2:22  
Thank you Sotiris. 

Sotiris Vardoulakis  2:24  
Thank you very much Aunty Linda. It is such an honour and privilege to have you. Rak Mak Mak Marranunggu. Please tell us about the effects of environmental change to older people in the environment and also the significance of this amazing ceremony.

Linda Payi Ford 2:41  
Thank you Sotiris. We respectfully acknowledge the Larrakia Elders past present and future generations that come as I walk respectfully through their Country. Today I talk on their Country for the HEAL Conference today and tomorrow. I respectfully acknowledge Veronica Matthews and all other Indigenous participants, attendees of the HEAL Conference. I respectfully acknowledge all other HEAL presenters and participants at the HEAL Conference. Congratulations on the Health Minister, the Honourable Greg Hunt MP, announcement yesterday to Professor Sotiris Vardoulakis and team for the Healthy Environments and Lives HEAL Network. What an achievement. And it's a big deal for me, it's one of the biggest grants that I've ever been a participant of. So I'm really looking forward to this project. And telling you a bit about that video. The Aboriginal People have drawn our knowledge from the environment over millennia. The Mirrwanna Cycad Palm has a female and male role. They grow at Makanba and we use those for our ceremonies. The nut in particular. The kernel for sharing at our ceremonies. They are important as they symbolise the engagement process during Wali in one of the ceremonies for Marawarrgut Nation, in the Daly River and Wagait region in the Northern Territory. I have drawn from Mirrwanna, learning and teaching using as a learning and teaching tool and as a metaphor for my PhD in 2005 as guiding principles to engage Indigenous people in higher education and research. I continue to apply them to the HEAL Conference Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement. And I'm going to talk about the Makanba site and why my family and I chose the way we did it, our Welcome. Tjuk piya is a welcome and like a present from us and our spitirual ancestors to you and to the HEAL project. It's our way to welcome and acknowledge the HEAL project and its participants. Makanba is a significant site where we practice burial rituals and Welcome to Country ceremonies. It is perhaps a new habit for all of us southwest of Darwin and located in Litchfield National Park. Makanba is the same name of the site and other female Sentinel being that looks after us and that place. It is a site that is respected. The baby ceremony that you saw being performed with my granddaughter and my daughter is only in general knowledge and practiced by Rak Mak Mak Marranunggu women and not their brothers and cousins. I'm a proud only Custodian of this knowledge. I pass this knowledge on to my daughter Chloe, and Chloe will hopefully one day pass this knowledge as a leader and so on. This knowledge is from female to female. It's very gendered. Men do not do this ceremony. We open the HEAL Conference with a Rak Mak Mak Marranunggu ritual that has sought the fashion instruments and digital recording open to the public of this conference this time. This Tjuk piya Ceremony is performed by Mangalis or grandmothers, with their grandchildren, or grandchild, and their mother. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, etc. in the NT, we thought this would be an appropriate Welcome and Acknowledgement to Country and to bless the HEAL project and its participants. So the spraying of the water represents the cleansing ceremony. And when I sprayed the HEAL logo, it was symbolic of Australia and all the HEAL participants and of the project of course. So bless the HEAL project and its participants. Mak Mak Marranunggu women are responsible to discharge and cultural obligations to create the spring Country, which is where we were sitting. The water there runs all year around. And its biodiversity, caring for water, aquatic animals, etc. Place, rain, animals and people that live there and our guests, fire, etc. There are our Ngirrwat and family. 
So at this point, I'd like to refer you to the painting in the background. This is one of my paintings of seasonal fires and in the middle is the domestic fires by my people, and then the yellow is the early burns. And then as you get later into the year, you get into the dark red, which is behind me. (Pointing at the painting behind). So they are in the late season, but we dont' want them any later than September, October, November because they really scorch the earth and kill a lot of the biodiversity such as plants and animals, which we don't want. We've had those (fires) before when we didn't have control of that Country and we were unable to manage it. But that hasn't happened in the last 25 years. Which has been quite significant for the comeback of a lot of threatened species such as the northen quoll. So over the next five years, we welcome the potential Indigenous participants in the HEAL project as it grows and florishes to address climate change impacts on our health and environment. More and more, especially for Indigenous People living in Australia's regional and remote areas, such as respiratory issues, such as asthma. I was a mild asmathic back in the 80s and 90s. But now in the last three years I've really suffered from the humidity, heat, pollens and the changes in the weather conditions here in Darwin. Now I have an EpiPen to help with my asthma and that seems to be quite significant. This is purely observational, whenever I've gone to the RDH there's lots and lots of countryman out there also suffering from these ailments, which isn't good. And there's more and more people burning Country out of season. And the horrible weeds, such as gamba grass, that when it's burnt it's quite acrid to stay and that seems to be exacerbating people's respiratory ailments. And of course, we've had big bushfires down south and people that have never suffered from asthma before are now asthmatic. And there's other experts, a lot of statistics on that topic that we will talk over the next few days. Renal issues, of course, on the increase; people on dialysis. A lot of our people have told me that is due to poor water quality, the surface water, mainly, and out there things are remote from any medical services. There will be health practitioners that will be able to address those issues with much more knowledge about these topics. What will the benefits of HEAL project for indigenous people addressing health issues look like in 1 year's time is a significant question to address such as closing the gap. I call on each of you to support the HEAL project to address indigenous disadvantage. And to contribute significantly to improving Indigenous peoples lives. Thank you. And I'll hand back to you Sotiris.

Sotiris Vardoulakis  13:02  
Thank you so much, Linda. That was so powerful. We're so privileged and honoured to have you on the HEAL Network and thank you for this very powerful address. And I'm particularly grateful because I know that you're unwell last week, thank you for joining us today. Let's move on ladies and gentlemen to the next opening address, which is going to be delivered by the Dean of the Australian National University, the Dean of the College of Health and Medicine, Professor Russell Gruen, my colleague and great supporter of the HEAL Network. Russ the floor is yours. 

Russel Gruen  13:42  
Thank you Sotiris and thank you Aunty Linda for your very moving welcome. I acknowledge that I'm here present on Ngunnawal Country and that everyone who joins us today is present, grounded on the First Nations people's Countries. As we commence a meeting of great importance, I pay my respects and if I may be so bold to do so on behalf of over 500 registered attendees, our collective combined and fulsome respects to the Elders past and present of this Country and of all Country and to all First Nations peoples involved in the conference. Your cultures are amongst the oldest continuing cultures in human history. And as made clear by the prominence of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our two day programme there is a lot everyone on Earth can learn from you about Country, the environment, climate, health and wellbeing. To everyone here and among us, are people who work in government, health care, public health, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations, other community organisations, charities, businesses, Higher Education and Research Institutions right across Australia and the Pacific region. To all of you, I welcome you as Dean of the College of Health and Medicine at ANU, our national university, and also as a citizen of Australia in the world. As dean, I'm very proud of the history that health and the environment has at ANU, particularly through its National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health. By welcoming you, I feel I'm in some ways channelling the late Professor Tony McMichael, a former director of NCEPH, and a much admired pioneer in the science of human health and climate change. Through seminal work, such as his 1993 book entitled "Planetary overload", he was recognised to have been 20 years ahead of his global peers. Tony helped cement Australia's reputation for thought leadership and scientific excellence. And between 1993 and 2001, he headed the health risks assessment for the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, work for which he and some 2000 Other IPCC scientists were jointly awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. Tony died prematurely in 2014. But I'm sure he would have been pleased to be part of this HEAL Conference. And I want to recognise that Tony's wife, Associate Professor Judith Healy, is with us here today. And I thank her for her ongoing contribution and support and interest in the field, and her own academic expertise and the contribution she's made. As an Australian and a global citizen, my welcome to all of you in our Zoom Room is also a vote of thanks, and an expression of hope. You've come from all corners of our nation, from many different walks of life, and you bring much wisdom and generosity. We have a lot to share, a lot to learn, and still a lot to find out. This conference is a turning point for Australia. And I have high hopes that together we will shape a flourishing future for people everywhere. Let's go forth and do it.

Sotiris Vardoulakis  17:28  
Thank you so much, Russell. That's a great opening address. Thank you for all your support to the HEAL Network. And let us move to the next opening address. I'm very privileged and honoured to introduce the Vice Chancellor of the Australian National University, Professional Brian Schmidt and Nobel Laureate in Physics and fellow physicist if I may. Brian, the floor is yours.

Brian Schmidt  17:54  
Thank you, Sotiris. Thank you, everyone. Special thanks to Linda for your wonderful welcome. I was great for you to share such a personal thing with all of us. I do feel truly honoured. I also loved that we have people from around the country and beyond and it's really pleasant to see everyone putting their Country in the chat, noting we have the Larrakia to the north, Luritja to the south, the Yawuru to the west and all the way across the ditch the Aotearoa in the east represented here today. I'm on Ngunnawal and Ngambri Lands, a place habitated for more than 20 millennia and it's a great part of the world and I encourage you as part of this grant programme, just come and visit us here in Canberra, at the ANU. I am pleased to be able to open the inaugural Healthy Environments and Lives HEAL 2021 Conference today. Now today's hybrid initiative online and face-to-face in six cities across Australia and we aim to bring together Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge sustainable development, environmental epidemiology, and data science and communication to tackle climate change and its impact on population health. The conference is organised by the HEAL network. This new initiative and environmental change and health research made up of over 100 investigators from 28 organisations across Australia and spirits headed here at the ANU. I will say I think it is the most complicated grant that I have ever seen as my time as Vice Chancellor, but it is a complication worthy of the challenge ahead. Importantly, it is comprising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander steering group that will ensure that Indigenous leadership and knowledge will be at the heart of the network and that is absolutely essential if it is going to be successful. Now here at ANU we have committed to the national responsibility that we have as National University to help build towards a better future and this includes the responsibility and advancing the lives of First Nations people. And as announced by the Federal Government Minister yesterday, the HEAL Network has been awarded $10 million in funding from the NHMRC in a Special Initiative in Human Health and Environmental Change. HEAL has also secured an additional $6 million in cash contributions from its partners and sponsors. So this investment could not be more timely. Beyond any doubt, climate change and global sustainability is a one of the biggest crisis humanity faces that requires cross-disciplinary solutions. Extreme events such as the black summer bushfires, and the environmental degradation that is occurring around the globe and on our own cotton threaten human health, and particularly threaten the very young, the elderly, and those who are socio-economically disadvantaged and marginalised. Health was chosen as a science priority for the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference COP 26 that just ended in Glasgow five days ago. There seems to be a stronger health focus to the climate change agenda, including on how to build climate resilience and sustainable health systems. I'm sorry to say this isn't going to go away, we are going to have to adapt. Now, climate action and we say action, is a key priority for ANU. We have a below zero initiative where we are committed to achieving below zero emissions by 2030 for energy waste work, travel and direct on campus greenhouse gas emissions, where the below zero comes from ANU-lead Australian initiatives. Our approach integrates practical emission reductions with research and teaching activities. We're one of the first universities to adopt such an ambitious target, including that below zero emissions goal. And as the National University we are aiming as part of this growth the innovation, engaged community provide the leadership to other organisations in Australia and around the world that is needed to show the way forward. The HEAL Network is a historic investment in our future. The coordinated group of experts and practitioners will substantially expand the boundaries of today's environmental, climate change and healthy research community. HEAL will most successfully underpin Australia's immediate and long term research activity and policy response to the health effects of climate change and environmental degradation. The next year, the network will also grow the next generation of environmental health researchers here in Australia, and provide a model for other countries to follow in tackling holisticly the health consequences of climate change. I would like to thank all the investigators, the organisations and communities, which have developed and supported HEAL to get it to where it's at, particularly professor Sotiris and his team for their vision and leadership. And I invite you all to contribute to the HEAL 2021 event today and tomorrow, and to the HEAL National Research Network in the next five years and beyond. I'm sorry, I cannot stay for your event. As always, I look forward to hearing about all that you do. I have no doubt that the contributions will be high calibre, and I look forward to seeing the sustainable outcomes that will be born from HEAL 2021 and contribute to a better future for all. So, Sotiris I'm going to hand back to you now. Thank you.

Sotiris Vardoulakis  23:35  
Thank you so much, Brian. Thank you again for the introductory address and thank you for all your support you've provided already to the HEAL Network. We're very grateful to you and to the to the College and to the university at ANU. Without further ado, I'd like to invite our next opening speaker Professor Anne Kelso, CEO of the National Health and Medical Research Council, to say a few words about the HEAL Network and the very substantial grant we secured from NHMRC. Anne the floor is yours.

Anne Kelso  24:08  
Thank you, Sotiris and good afternoon, everyone, wherever you are. I'm joining you from Ngunnawal Country in the ACT just over the road for ANU and I'm really delighted to participate in this event today. I'd like to start by congratulating Sotiris and your very large group of collaborators all around the country on the award of this major grant from NHMRC. As has already been said, it's a special initiative in human health and environmental change and it was announced yesterday by our Minister, honourable Greg Hunt MP. Now the grant will provide $10 million over five years to the HEAL Network and it's going to involve investigators across multiple disciplines and all around the country, as the Vice Chancellor has just said. And so I'd like to say a few words about why we established this special initiative and our hopes from an NHMRC perspective for its outcomes. Now, I hope it won't surprise you to know that building resilience to environmental change, emerging health threats and emergencies has been one of the NHMRC strategic priorities for the last three years, published annually in our corporate plan, and it remains so for the three years ahead. I'm not suggesting it'll be over in three years ahead. But it's the declared a strategic priority for this three year period. And I don't need to tell this audience while building resilience to environmental change should be a strategic priority for NHMRC. You and I understand that our changing climatic conditions are a health threat of the highest order, whether due to extreme weather events and their physical and mental impacts on individuals and communities, or to increasing heat stress or pollution or changing vector distribution, or indeed the ability of our health system to adapt to these many challenges that were already experienced, and foresee becoming much more critical in the years ahead. What surprised me when we dove into the data was how little research NHMRC was funding on the health impacts of our changing climate. Now we estimate that NHMRC has expended about 26 million on 47 projects over the last 20 years that since 2000. Now, of course, we know that critically important work was done. And Professor McMichael was an absolutely central leader in that work earlier on. But the scale of that investment really wasn't proportionate to the threat as we now understand it. I know it's hard to get NHMRC funding for anything and very few fields would think that they're adequately funded. But it was really striking to us that we weren't even receiving many grant applications in this area. So we started planning this special initiative first by carving out some funds, and then holding a workshop in late 2019. That brought together people from different disciplines and perspectives around the country to tell us what was needed. And some of you at this conference were, of course, part of that discussion. Now, that wasn't an easy conversation. Those who were there will remember, opinions were very wide ranging, and the needs were obviously very great. But it really strengthened our resolve to fund a collaborative network, something that would bring individuals teams and disciplines together to tackle these issues in a more coordinated way than is usually possible if you have a number of individual small grants. We also wanted to see it build capacity and interest in this area of research more broadly across the health and medical research sector. So from our perspective, we have two overarching goals for this initiative. Of course, the goals of the initiative itself to contribute to improving the Australian Health Systems resilience, preparedness and responsiveness to changing environmental conditions and extreme weather events. And Of course, that's now the task for the HEAL Network. But we also hope that this will be a catalyst and draw more Australian researchers to this topic, so that in a few years' time we'll see research on environmental change and health, drawing funds from all of our general NHMRC funding schemes. And in fact, the 10 million grant, $10 million grant to the heel network has already been a catalyst, as we've heard from the Vice Chancellor, leveraging substantial additional funds, as well as skills and connections from partners around the country to amplify the core effort. And I think this is a fantastic start.
When I was first thinking about climate impacts on health from an NHMRC perspective, I was thinking only about how we can mitigate the impact of climate change on individual and population health and the health system. So I want to thank those people who drew our attention to the other side of the story: how the health system itself contributes to carbon emissions, and the opportunities that presents to reduce those emissions. I've been really struck by the extraordinary change that Dr. Nick Watts, the Chief Sustainability Officer of the NHS in England, and his colleagues have achieved through a series of targets and actions and in just the first 12 months of their programme, they've saved the equivalent of emissions from 1.7 million flights from London to New York and back. Dr. Watts' recent talk at the Conference of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences should be compulsory viewing for anyone who hasn't already been inspired by what's possible in the health system itself. So I'm pleased that the HEAL Network is planning work on both sides of this picture, mainly on understanding and building resilience to the impacts of environmental change, but also on monitoring and evaluating ways to reduce the carbon footprint of the health system. It's also important to, as others have done, to highlight HEAL's focus on partnerships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers, organisations and communities. There are lots of reasons this is important and they include, of course, the greater vulnerability of many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to the impacts of climate change, as we heard so vividly from Auntie Linda. And also the absolute necessity of working together to minimise those inequities through Indigenous led research, design, conduct and implementation, but also the lessons for our Western society from the original people of this country. As we non-Indigenous Australians recognise and acknowledge their successes in caring for this land and its peoples over 10s of 1000s of years, and our failures to do so over the last 250 years. It's a great strength of the HEAL Network that the integration of indigenous knowledge and culture will underpin its work. So my congratulations to all of you who are part of this important network, my thanks to others who are participating in this conference, who are also working towards the shared goal of a climate resilient community and health system. While much has already been learned, we know that there is much more both to learn and of course to do to achieve this goal. My hope is that the support NHMRC is providing now is timely, as the Vice Chancellor has suggested, because we know it's not a moment too soon. Thank you.

Sotiris Vardoulakis  31:37  
Thank you so much, Anne. That was absolutely great. And I should say that, Nick Watts, the chief Officer of NHS stability programme is also on our advisory board. So we're delighted to have contributions from International experts. We're very grateful for the NHMRC investment in the HEAL Network. Very grateful also for the investment and the commitment of all the colleagues who committed funds in-cash and in-kind contributions to the network. It's a substantial pot of funding now to do the best out of that, and it's a huge responsibility for us. We feel the responsibility and we'll try our very best to make the best out of this very major investment. I will give, I'll slightly changed the programme and I've brought my presentation forward to give an overview of the HEAL Network and the activities and the governance structure and what we're planning in depth for the next five years. It's an overview presentation. I will start with the vision of the HEAL Network, which is to catalyse research, knowledge exchange and translation points in practice that will bring measurable improvements to our health, the Australian Health System and the environment. I will share my slides, so I hope you can see those slides. Awesome. Just to say very locally that Aboriginal and Torrest Strait Islander people have taken care this country, this land, for 60,000 years and they have done that very sustainable. In many ways, in a better way that we've managed to do in the last 250 years with Western science and this is one of the key priorities the HEAL Network: to respectfully integrate the traditional owners' Knowledge and wisdom and practices with Western science data and modelling. I would like to also refer and dedicate the grant, the HEAL grant, to the people who lived through the horrific bushfires we experienced in Australia in 2019/2020. Those who lived through the smoke, for those who lost properties and loved ones, the people who died and the babies that were born smoke in many parts of the country. We brought to them to make a success out of this of this grant. I would like to refer to some international initiatives. First of all, it is increasingly clear that health is the centre of the effects of climate change. We understand there's increasing recognition that climate change is not just an environmental problem, is a health, a major health problem. It's the greatest global health threat that we're facing in the 21st century, but it's also importantly an opportunity. If we mitigate climate change, we adapt to climate change successfully, we can draw many benefits, many co-benefits as we call them, for public health and for human health. And I will refer to that in more detail in a moment. In the recent UN Climate Change Conference, which set it in Glasgow last week, Health was chosen as a science priority and this is telling. The President of COP26, Alok Sharma, in his concluding statement he used health terms to describe the advances made at the Conference and the risks. He said specifically, we have kept 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels alive. But its pulse is weak. And it will only survive if we keep our promises and translate commitments into rapid action. So action was at the heart of the Conference. Obviously, we need to see more. And the action is also at the heart of the Sustainable Development. We are in the decade of action and we know that health, public health, go hand in hand with equity, with climate change mitigation, with environmental protection, with economic growth. We cannot have one without the others. So it's very important to focus on action. That's the key priority of the HEAL Network, to provide the evidence and instruments and tools to support and promote this action. In Australia, we are at the frontline of environmental change and climate change, we experience heat waves, droughts, bushfires, floods in other parts of the country. So it's, this is what we need to address, what we need to make sure that we address through better resilience in the health services and the community as a whole. We're also facing slow burning problems of the environment, air pollution in our cities from different sources. We also see our seats overheating, of the urban heat island effect, overheating of buildings that this is causing effects on respiratory health, cardiovascular health, asthma exacerbations, but also loss of productivity, and it has major economic impacts for Australia. So it's very important to act. Pollution of the soil and water contamination, legacy contamination, microplastic contamination of our soils, water sources, and the cost is also very important and something to address with that, and certainly impacts on human health in the long term. So this is an important area of investigation for the HEAL Network. Environmental change als affects parts of infectious diseases. And that's, of course, vector-borne diseases by mosquitoes, malaria and dengue, but also respiratory diseases like COVID-19, which are affected, which intereact with the environment, both indoor and outdoor, and the pattern of the distribution of these diseases and transmission is affected by environmental factors, which we need to understand better. As I was saying earlier, the health sector is at the centre of this issue. We are part of the problem, we're part of the solution. We know that the health sector in Australia is emitting around 7% of the national emissions of carbon dioxide every year. This a very significant contribution to the carbon emissions of the country and we need to do better we need to reduce, provide the evidence to reduce the carbon footprint of the health sector. We also need to improve the resilience, strengthen the health system, improving the resilience to extreme weather events to bushfires, to heat waves, to overheating, to infectious disease outbreaks. And this is an important part of the HEAL Network agenda. There are many benefits to realise if we adapt and mitigate effectively climate change. This will come from better transport, more sustainable transport, active travel, more walking and cycling our cities. The electrification with vehicle fleet that will reduce carbon emissions and it will also reduce air pollution in our cities and improve health. Healthier diets with more fruits and vegetables, less saturated fat intake will reduce emissions from the farming and agricultural sector and improve cardiovascular health. Household clean energy in our houses will also improve air quality, will improve thermal comfort and reduce carbon emissions. Better green spaces in our cities will reduce overheating, will reduce the urban heat-island effect and will provide the opportunities for amenity recreation, better mental health, better physical health, and of course strengthen primary care. Preventing preventive health that will reduce the pressure on the health system and services, and that's very important to strengthen. This is the aim of the HEAL Network: to provide the evidence, capacity, capability and tools which are needed to protect and improve community health. Strengthen Health System resilience sustainability and reduce inequities and inequalities within and across communities in Australia and also work with our partner organisations in other countries and the Indo Pacific region to improve health and wellbeing. HEAL is a very large coalition of partners. We have over 100 investigators on the grant. We have over around 30 institutions involved in the network and that includes institutions from across the country, from all states and territories, we have universities involved in the network, but also importantly, stakeholders, policymakers, health departments, environmental protection agencies and community groups. The network is distributed across the country. We have engaged extensively with policy and decision makers from across Australia, with data providers, important with indigenous organisations and community-controlled organisations from across Australia and with health sector organisations. What you can see here in this beautiful map created by Indigenous artists in our network is that we have, you can see, the governance structure of HEAL and the National Implementation Centre at the Australian National University. We have the the Indigenous Steering Committee and the Independent Advisory Board and the International Reference Group. And you can see also the regional hubs in all states and territories. And also in addition to that, the communities of practice, which is a place where researchers, communities, practitioners, policymakers, business will meet to co-design research and translate research into policy and practice locally. This slide encapsulates the guiding principles of the HEAL Network. The main focus of the network is to provide actionable solutions. So we focus on participatory action research, translation points in practice to improve outcomes. So this is very much the work we want to focus on, to be descriptive research project, but the main focus would be on participatory action research with a direct translation policy in practice. I'll give a brief overview of the overall structure of the network here. And what you can see on this slide is the foundation and enablers of HEAL, which is the democratic governance the distributed nature of the network across Australia, the focus on Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander knowledge and wisdom, and focus on health systems, and also the focus on solutions and engagement. You can see on the top the three cross-cutting themes of the network, which are Indigenous knowledge, data and decision support systems and science communication. And what you can see here in the yellow box is the seven research themes of the network. And these are similar to the themes of the Conference that we're celebrating today. And we have a focus on health systems; bushfire, air pollution and extreme events; food soil and water; biosecurity; urban Health; rural and remote health; and at risk populations. These are like the organs of the network and we have the priority actions here which will bring together the network. These are like the connective tissue of the network. To create a national environmental health risk assessment, which will include health impacts, economic impacts, an equity impacts. We will establish the HEAL Observatory, which is an online knowledge action hub that will bring together information from different sources and data and tools. We will set up a pilot sustainable health unit that will track the healthcare environmental performance. And we'll also develop a story data Atlas integrating Indigenous and Western systems and this program of work will be translated to policy and practice to protect and improve health of the population and at risk groups, to strengthen the health system resistance and sustainability, empowering Indigenous research and communities, and reducing inequity and inequality. This is an example of the work we'll be doing integrating stories and data; Indigenous stories and data, environmental health data from across Australia. We have the additional funding from the ARC Indigenous Discovery Program. This is a grant led by Dr Veronica Matthews at the University of Sydney, Kerrie Mengersen from QUT and many other colleagues from the HEAL Network and that will provide additional funding to the network to provide this groundbreaking integration of Indigenous knowledge with Western data and science. I will show you some of the communication tools which we are using. Some of this were produced during the bushfires from 2019/2020 and this gives you an idea of the communication tools that we can develop as part of the network. So this fact is on bushfire smoke protection and mental health protection, were developed by the Austrian National University, the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, who also carried out a Health Survey during the bushfires. And I would also like to highlight the air rater, which is a groundbreaking application led and developed by Professor Fay Johnston from the University of Tasmania and her colleagues, which also a very influential and important piece of communication, great communcation tool. And this gives an idea flavour of what the letter will be developing in the coming years. We're not starting from scratch, there are many other organisations, many initiatives in the last 20 years in Australia and internationally working on environmental change, climate change and health. We will draw our strength from these initiatives and organisations. Many of these groups are involved in the HEAL Network and we'll benefit from the work they have done already. We'll build on that, we will work collaboratively. I would like to emphasise the HEAL is open to everybody. Everybody's welcome to join the network as we've done with the conference today. It's open and free for everybody. And we'd like to see more of you joining our program of work and importantly, I want to see young researchers and practitioners to join the network from across Australia, and particularly from indigenous communities from the different parts of the country. The HEAL Conference 2021 is the first action of the network. We started to actually organise the conference before we knew about the grant success and the time couldn't be any better. It's a two day conference, it's hybrid, that means online the full programme but also in person in six cities in Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide, Darwin, Alice Spring and Hobart. These are the breakout sessions focusing on regions in the programme for tomorrow. The network and the Conference is inclusively diverse, distributed, it's interactive and it's free. We have around 700 registered participants, over 70 speakers, 20 panels and 21 posters, which will enter the best poster competition. Also, importantly, this is a net-zero conference, with zero travel, zero paper, and zero food waste. So want to be consistent with our principles and make sure that the footprint of the conference is as low as possible and that we set an example for other conference organisations to follow. After the conference, we'll bring together all the evidence and knowledge and priority areas that have been identified in the breakout groups, to develop a position paper and also a special issue to publish in a high impact scientific journal. And at this point, I'd like to thank you all for joining the conference. Thank you very much for the opening session speakers, and I look forward to the talks later today and tomorrow. Thank you very much