Natural Footsteps: Ethical Travel

Anthony Ham is one of Australia's most experienced nature and travel writers. For more than two decades, he has been travelling to the earth's wild places in search of stories, to Africa, the Amazon, the Arctic, and Outback Australia. His work has appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic Traveler, BBC Travel, The Age and elsewhere.

Bri Lee is an award-winning author, academic, and activist. Her books include Who Gets to be Smart, Beauty, and Eggshell Skull. She is the columnist for T Magazine Australia, writes regularly for The Saturday Paper, and runs a weekly Substack called News & Reviews. Bri's advocacy saw consent laws in Queensland referred to the Law Reform Commission, and she founded the 'Freadom Inside' initiative which gets books to women in prisons in New South Wales. She's a PhD candidate and lecturer at the University of Sydney. 

Tara Winkler is the co-founder of Cambodian Children's Trust (CCT), which she established in 2007 with Pon Jedtha to help 14 children escape an abusive orphanage. Over the last 15 years, she has led CCT through several organisational changes. In 2012, CCT became the first organisation in Cambodia to transform its orphanage into a family-based care model and led the way in Cambodia’s care reform movement. In 2019, CCT began another major transformation to address the root cause of the orphanage crisis with the launch of its Village Hive Project. The Village Hive Project is transferring CCT’s programs and services into the public sector to build a universal social protection system that is delivered sustainably by the local community. Winkler’s story has been featured on ABC's Australian Story, 60 Minutes Australia and many other international media platforms and academic journals. Her TED Talk ‘Why we need to end the era of orphanages’ has received over 1.2 million views. She also testified at the Australian Parliamentary Inquiry into Modern Slavery in 2017, alongside CCT ambassador Sinet Chan, which resulted in orphanage trafficking being formally recognised for the first time in history. Winkler’s book 'How (NOT) to Start an Orphanage' was published by Allen & Unwin in 2016. She is currently working on developing her book into a feature film produced by Sunstar Entertainment and is executive producing a documentary on decolonising development.

Ben Groundwater is an award-winning travel and food writer with more than 20 years’ experience in the media. He’s a columnist and regular contributor to the travel pages of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, the host of the acclaimed travel podcast Flight of Fancy, and the author of five travel and food books. He has twice been named the Australian Society of Travel Writers’ “Travel Writer of the Year”.

With thirty years tourism experience, Jenny-Lee has worked with most sectors of the industry, including a decade as Tourism Manager in Local Government. NSW National parks, YHA of NSW, BridgeClimb, IMAX, ACCOR, Powerhouse & Australian Museums are a few of Jenny-Lee’s employers. Jenny-Lee also headed up the marketing and tourism development team for the Kingdom of Tonga focused on delivering an empowered local team. She has paddled rivers and oceans around the world in kayaks and outrigger canoes. Devastated by the impact of plastic and litter Jenny-Lee joined the Take 3 team in 2018 to help shift the tide on litter and plastics ending up in our oceans.