Events

Join MDHS for our annual Indigenous Development Reconciliation Week event, supported by Truth Telling in Health for a Reconciliation Week panel grounded in the 2026 theme, “All In”: a call for all Australians to commit wholeheartedly to reconciliation every single day. 

“All In” makes clear that reconciliation is not a spectator sport. It asks everyone to step off the sidelines and take sustained, practical action to advance Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ health outcomes. This event brings together leaders from health, education and Indigenous engagement to discuss what being “All In” looks like in practice, in teaching, research, service delivery and leadership.

In Australia, policies are prioritising increases in urban forest coverage and diversity as a climate change adaptation response. However, the relationship between people’s feelings about urban trees and public policy is under-examined.

Responding to this gap in research, this talk considers the emotional geographies of urban forests in the Australian city of Melbourne – drawing on a unique dataset from The City of Melbourne’s email-a-tree initiative to identify how concern and connection for urban trees is expressed.

Examining emails sent to trees using a mixed-methods approach, the team uncovered data that subverts anthropocentric assumptions of trees – suggesting new ways of understanding people’s commitments to nature, and possibilities for securing better futures for urban forests.