Desert custodians make the cut
On the same weekend that the Everything Electric show cruised into Sydney, Prince William’s Earthshot revealed the finalists in the running for its annual prize to fix the planet.
The Earthshot Prize has named the three finalists in each of its five categories, and Western Australia’s Indigenous Desert Alliance counts among them.
Earthshot was founded by Prince William in 2020 to find, celebrate and scale the solutions to repair our planet by 2030, with a prize winner in each of its five categories to be announced at a Mumbai ceremony in November.
The solutions presented by this year's 15 finalists range from wildfire detection and heat resilience to food waste reduction and landscape protection.
The Indigenous Desert Alliance based in Western Australia applies traditional knowledge to manage bushfire and biodiversity across 279 million hectares, making it the largest Indigenous-led conservation corridor in the world.
Samantha Murray, CEO of Indigenous Desert Alliance said:
IDA exists to serve desert mob and the rangers caring for Country every day, connecting their work across the desert.
Being selected as an Earthshot Prize Finalist gives us a stronger platform to show why right-way fire, threatened-species work and knowledge passed from Elders to younger people must be supported and funded for the long term.
Everything Electric
EVs of all shapes and sizes dazzled attendees at Sydney's Everything Electric show last weekend, with price drops on some entry-level models removing upfront cost as a key barrier to EV ownership.
But with EVs now outselling petrol and diesel vehicles in Australia, a panel of EV experts in the show's Energy Advice Zone agreed that Australia’s EV charging Infrastructure was in need of a boost to avoid charging pinch points when holiday traffic hits in December.
Meanwhile, at the show's Giga Theatre, EV fleet management was a hot topic of discussion as panellists reflected on some of the opportunities and challenges of maintaining an EV fleet.
The commercial theme carried through to the exhibition floor with an all-electric Staria van from Hyundai making its debut (below) and heavy electric trucking solutions from Volvo and Janus also on display.
