Presenters

Dr Emma Carmody, Co-Founder & Director of Legal and Partnerships, Restore Blue and Commissioner for the River Murray – South Australia
Emma Carmody is an environmental and water lawyer with over 20 years’ experience practising in Australia and internationally, including as legal advisor to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands in Switzerland. She is a co-founder of Restore Blue, a for-purpose business which specialises in blue carbon wetland restoration and which offers advisory services to a range of clients across the areas of law, governance, policy, water science and water engineering. She is widely recognised for her expertise in the fields of water law, the law governing nature restoration projects, and international environmental law. Emma is Chair of the Mulloon Institute’s Law Committee, a non-executive director of the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA) and a fellow of the Peter Cullen Water and Environment Trust.


Mike Young, Professor Emeritus, School of Economics and Public Policy, University of Adelaide
Mike Young is Professor Emeritus in Water and Environmental Policy at the University of Adelaide, was the Founding Executive Director of its Environment Institute, is a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and is a Distinguished Fellow of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society. Mike is a specialist in water policy reform and his research led to the unbundling of Australia’s water licences and the resultant development of an efficient trading system and the Australian Government decision to transfer responsibility for the administration of the Murray Darling Basin’s water resources to an independent expertise-based authority. He played a key role in establishing Australia’s National Land and Water Resources Audit. Mike has held the Gough Whitlam and Malcom Fraser Chair at Harvard University, has served on Global Water Partnership's Technical Committee and the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Water Security. He was a founding member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists. In 2006, Mike was awarded Australia’s premier water research prize – the Land and Water Australia Eureka Award for Water Research. He has played a critical role in the consideration of options for the Murray Darling Basin. Prior to joining the University of Adelaide, Mike spent 30 years with CSIRO where, amongst other things, he established their Policy and Economic Research Unit. In 2003, Mike was awarded a Centenary Medal “for outstanding service through environmental economics”. His full curriculum vitae lists over 240 publications.