September 2, 2026
Transforming complex climate science into practical conservation action is something that everyone wants to celebrate. Especially CSIRO’s Vanessa Round and Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s Jenny Pierson. With the dedicated time for stakeholder engagement and co-design available through the NESP Climate Systems Hub, this partnership created not only practical solutions for one organisation, but a model for how similar collaborations can be built across the sector to scale the adaptation efforts we need in conservation.
Beginning with a simple email, the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) team contacted CSIRO seeking assistance with climate data to support vulnerability assessments for species across their conservation properties. When reading this information request, Vanessa knew from experience that much larger challenges lay beneath the surface. While climate projections and datasets are publicly available, understanding which information is appropriate, how to interpret it, and how to apply it confidently within decision-making processes can sometimes be overwhelming for practitioners.
Rather than simply directing Jenny to datasets or online tools, Vanessa was able to work closely with her as part of the NESP Climate System Hub’s Extreme climate: dry, wet, hot-and-dry project. She started to understand what decisions they were actually trying to make, for their specific context, including navigating drought projections, rainfall variability and extreme temperature information, while also assisting AWC in selecting representative climate models that reflected a realistic range of future conditions. Importantly, this process recognised the practical limitations facing conservation organisations. Jenny shares that Vanessa’s guidance around selecting a manageable but scientifically defensible suite of models is particularly valuable.
A major strength of the co-design partnership was the way both sides contributed complementary expertise. Both Vanessa and Jenny describe the relationship as highly collaborative and mutually beneficial. For Jenny, having direct access to climate expertise created confidence that they were not “missing anything important” when applying climate information to conservation planning. Jenny reflected that one of the greatest challenges in climate adaptation is managing uncertainty, particularly around drought projections and extreme events. Working directly with researchers who understood the technical limitations and strengths of the modelling allowed the organisation to make decisions with greater confidence and clarity. AWC now use future climate information more rigorously in their property acquisition assessment processes.
At the same time, Vanessa described gaining equally important insights from Jenny’s experience and knowledge of the conservation sector. Through the partnership, she developed a deeper understanding of how climate information is interpreted and applied in real-world conservation settings. The collaboration reinforced the importance of simplifying and translating scientific information into forms that remain useful and actionable for non-specialist users.
Vanessa shares that another hugely valuable aspect was being able to bring together CSIRO’s drought data with data about impacts to wildlife populations.
“Quality data about impacts is rare, but important to help us understand what the implications of changing climate, like increased drought or warmer temperatures, might be,” she says.
“It’s been rewarding to see how they’re using future climate projections to make informed decisions, like translocating species from areas that climate models say will become too hot to properties that are expected to stay within the species’ historical climate range.”
Jenny agrees that they were able to gain incredibly useful insight into what aspects of drought were most relevant to their populations.
The Hub’s Knowledge Brokers played an important role in strengthening and extending the impact of this collaboration. Both Vanessa and Jenny praised the activities that captured their collaboration, including a webinar and public case study. These activities helped bring together different audiences from across policy and practice communities demonstrating how insights from individual partnerships can reach beyond a single project and support wider application across a range of sectors.
The resulting knowledge exchange activities also demonstrated the broader value of applied partnerships. Vanessa reflected that scientists can sometimes underestimate the significance of the impact their work is having, while Jenny noted that collaborations involving researchers from outside traditional conservation disciplines can often generate particularly valuable insights because they bring fresh perspectives to practical challenges.
Ultimately, this work illustrates how trusted, ongoing relationships between researchers, practitioners and knowledge brokers can bridge the gap between climate science and on-ground adaptation. Rather than knowledge flowing in a single direction, all groups learned from each other, building shared understanding and confidence in decision-making and the realities of adapting Australian wildlife conservation to future climate conditions.
For more information about AWCs adaptation actions >
For more information about the knowledge brokers and other stakeholder stories >