LISA JACKSON PULVER - Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Sydney's Indigenous Strategy and Services

Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver is a proud Aboriginal woman with connections to communities in southwestern New South Wales, South Australia, and beyond. She is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Indigenous Strategy and Services for the University of Sydney and leads the institution's strategy to advance Indigenous participation, engagement, education, and research, including the university's One Sydney, Many People 2021-2024 strategy.

She is a recognized expert and tireless advocate for health and education. Her research focuses on capacity building for healthcare workers and improved health for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. She serves her country in the Royal Australian Air Force Specialist Reserve as a Group Captain and is a member of the Australian Statistical Advisory Committee, the Australian Medical Council, and the Health Performance Council of South Australia.

"So, I'll go back to One Sydney, Many People, because one of the four pillars is about Pemulian, the environment. And it is critical that for our mob, we come from the land. And when we go, we go back to the land. The land is so important. It has never been ceded or sold. It is such a precious resource. And it's fascinating. I work with a classical historian, and we've had many a conversation. And back in antiquity, people recognized the value of land. They recognized that if you damage the land, you won't be able to grow your crops. If you pollute the waters, you won't be able to drink or bathe and be refreshed, healthy, and clean. And somehow the industrial world kind of lost sight of that, right? Really, really lost sight of that. And the diversity of the ecology has evolved over billions of years to provide this beautiful thing called balance. And what we are now is a world profoundly out of balance in every part of it. And the pillaging and absolute mass slaughter of anything that is of the land or comes out of the land, in the modern parlance, is something that I know we will not be remembered well for in history.

We are currently sitting in a very pointed part of history where, at the moment, we have got koalas crossing the roads in rather urbanized environments because we've completely broken their link to be able to eat, and they're starving. They're the ones that survived the fires. You know, we are at the moment on the pointed end of extinction of so many species in Australia that it just makes your heart break, if you think about it too closely, that biodiversity was part of the unique balance in our world."

www.sydney.edu.au

www.sydney.edu.au/content/dam/corporate/documents/about-us/values-and-visions/one-sydney-many-people-digital.pdf

Season 2 of Business & Society focuses on Leaders, Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki & Mia Funk www.oneplanetpodcast.org