Summary of workshops at AOC 2025

Full and half-day workshops will be run on Monday 17 November. These workshops are free but do require booking (booking details to come later).

Shorter workshops, meetings and events will run during lunch breaks on Tuesday 18 November, Wednesday 19 November and Thursday 20 November at the Business School, UWS. No bookings needed.

Additional workshop details will be added to this page as they are confirmed.

Full-day Workshop: Monday 17 November

Mapping the sensitivity of Australia’s Avifauna to renewable energy infrastructure using the free online siting tool AviStep: A vital first step in achieving nature-safe renewable energy projects.

Organisers: Tris Allinson (BirdLife International), Dr Golo Maurer, Dr Yuna Kim (BirdLife Australia)
Time: TBA
Venue: TBA
By invitation only

Australia aims to achieve 82% of its electricity generation from renewable sources by 2030. This will require a considerable expansion of utility-scale wind and solar, as well as an associated increase in powerlines. This infrastructure could have a significant impact on Australian Avifauna if sited inappropriately. It is therefore vital for achieving the ambitious renewables target without detrimental impact on biodiversity that the energy transition is based on a clear understanding of where sensitive bird populations occur.

BirdLife International and its national partner, BirdLife Australia, have developed a series of detailed spatial assessments of avian sensitivity for the following infrastructure: onshore wind, offshore wind, photovoltaic solar, overhead transmission lines and overhead distribution lines. These assessments are compiled in a global online siting tool for renewable energy against wind availability AVISTEP – the Avian Sensitivity Tool for Energy Planning (https://avistep.birdlife.org).

This workshop will coincide with the public launch of the Australian maps on AVISTEP – and will explain:

• Why spatial information is so important to achieve a nature-safe and nature-positive energy transition in Australia.
• How the AVISTEP maps were created by reviewing the datasets and methodologies used in the analyses.
• How AVISTEP maps can be integrated into national and regional planning decisions.

Who is the workshop for? This in-person workshop will be valuable to renewable energy peak bodies, windfarm developers, ecological consultants, government agencies, conservationists and anyone with an interest in ensuring that Australia meets its renewable energy targets without jeopardising its extraordinary avifauna.

The development of AVISTEP for Australia has been made possible through the generous support of Fortescue.

Half-day Workshop: Monday 17 November

Citizen Advocacy: Native Vegetation Protection for Birds in WA

Organisers: Viv Read and Mark Henryon (BirdLife WA Advocacy Committee)
Time: TBA
Venue: TBA
Booking will be required, details to come

Native vegetation has been very substantially cleared in south-west WA. Any further native vegetation loss is also a habitat loss for birds. While now regulated, the rate of loss is still very high. BirdLife WA has increasing concern about this loss especially with further weakening of environmental protection in WA and delays in urgent reform required for national environmental protection legislation. BirdLife WA has made many submissions for birds and bird habitat conservation but to what effect?

BirdLife WA has undertaken a critical analysis of the complex state and commonwealth assessment processes identifying the most effective roles for Citizen Advocacy. This has resulted in a guide that enables citizen advocates to better understand assessment processes. It has also resulted in a set of recommendations for change to assessment systems. Our right to participate in environmental assessment processes is entrenched in legislation. This workshop will explore how to be effective and influential through public participation.

The workshop will enable interactive involvement, foster public discussion and will analyse a range of recent relevant case studies.

Who is the workshop for? This workshop is for environmental NGO’s and motivated individuals who want to participate effectively in environmental assessment processes. The scope will consider how best to work effectively within the system through to campaigning when voices are not being heard.

Three-day Workshop: Friday 21- Sunday 23 November

Sound recording

Hosted by Cornell University/Macaulay Library
Cost: $100
Details and registration on the Cornell website

This workshop is intended to teach the basics of sound recording, editing, and sharing, as well as how your efforts in the field can help bring Merlin Sound ID to Australia and power research and conservation.

 

Workshops at UWA, Lunchtime sessions 18-20 November

No bookings are required. More workshops will be added over the next few months so please check the website for updates.

Key Biodiversity Areas: help shape the sites for birds in Australia

Organiser: Anna McCallum (BirdLife Australia)
Time: TBA

Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) are sites that contribute to the persistence of biodiversity and are identified using a globally standardised science-based approach. In Australia, there are currently 334 KBAs, most of which were first identified as Important Bird Areas (IBAs). BirdLife Australia is currently reviewing and updating legacy IBA sites to ensure they meet the KBA Standard. This process includes a technical review of the latest data on species population sizes, in addition to stakeholder engagement regarding a site’s management. We are calling on species experts, land managers and community to collaborate to ensure the KBA network represents the most important areas for birds across Australia. Learn more about the KBA process and how you can get involved.

 

Birds on Farms goes digital: Helping landholders create bird-friendly farms across Australia

Organiser: Margot Oorebeek (BirdLife Australia)
Time: TBA

Birds on Farms is working with landholders to improve the extent, condition and connectivity of woodland habitat on private properties. We will be showcasing our new online courses where landholders across Australia can learn how to create a bird-friendly farm and develop a habitat restoration plan for their property.

 

Atlas of Living Australia: Your gateway to Birdata

Organiser: Rachel Swain (BirdLife Australia)
Time: TBA

Thanks to BirdLife partnering with the Atlas of Living Australia, you can now search, filter and download all Birdata records. In this workshop we will show you how to use ALA tools to explore BirdLife data and the new and improved process for requesting sensitive species records.

 

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Sound Localisation

Organiser: Michael Maggs (Frontier Labs)
Time: TBA

Join Michael from Frontier Labs for a hands-on workshop on acoustic localisation. Learn just how easy it is to use time difference of arrival (TDoA) to locate animal calls in 3D space. Explore how Frontier Labs’ recorders and software simplify this powerful tool for wildlife monitoring, and population and behavioural studies

 

The Good, the Bad, (and the Messy) of Species Recovery

Organisers: Andrew Hunter & Davide Gaglio (BirdLife Australia)
Time: TBA

This interactive workshop will build on the themes of the symposium From Plans to Action: Overcoming Barriers in Species Recovery, providing a space for participants to share and synthesise insights from their own practice and experience. Through group exercises, we will explore how recovery efforts can be reframed in more strategic governance terms, and identify opportunities to strengthen coordination, partnerships, and collective impact. This workshop will draw on participants’ experiences to highlight practical pathways for turning recovery planning into effective on-ground action.

 

Mortality addition to Birdata: tracking the fate of the birds we love

Organiser: Tanya Loos (BirdLife Australia)
Time: TBA

Birdata now has functionality to record mortality rates, and observations of sick, injured and dying birds. Join us on a short walk to nearby Pelican Point for a demonstration of how to use this vital addition to the Birdata platform. Grab your lunch to eat by the shore.

 

Multi-Spot Sampling, INTELINK, and the Path from Supervised to Unsupervised Learning for Behavior Recognition

Organiser: Guozheng Li (Druid Technology), Dr. Hui Yu (Deakin University), Lin Yan (Druid Technology)
Time: TBA

This workshop will explore how three core components—multi-spot sampling, INTELINK device-to-device connectivity, and hybrid supervised–unsupervised learning—combine to advance wildlife behavior recognition.

We will discuss:

· How advances in miniaturisation and ultra-low power design makes it feasible to mount multiple devices on an animal individual at different body locations (e.g., leg, back, tail, neck) to capture sophisticated behaviors as well as enable cross annotation.

· How INTELINK enables in-situ modeling by live-streaming acceleration data for on-site behavior annotation as well as synchronized video recording for post validation and calibration and achieves on-board continuous behavior recognition output.

· How some unsupervised learning experiments are designed and their current states.

We will also focus on INTELINK’s key role in coordinating multi-spot sampling for precise capture of the high-resolution data, while laying the groundwork for future device-to-device assisted model self-optimisation.