Humanising Natural History Collections: Putting CARE principles into practice in the geosciences in Australia

Australia's natural history collections represent irreplaceable scientific infrastructure that underpins our understanding of deep-time biological and geological diversity and environmental change. As we confront accelerating biodiversity loss and climate change, these collections provide essential baselines for understanding ecosystem responses to environmental stress. Combined with deep temporal perspectives offered by palaeoecological data, in this case held within the Indo-Pacific Pollen Database (IPPD - NEOTOMAdb), this information is particularly valuable for predicting future ecosystem dynamics and informing conservation strategies. This presentation will explore: (i) how Australia’s natural history collections serve as critical infrastructure for systematic palaeoecological research, highlighting their role in preserving Australia's environmental heritage while enabling cutting-edge research into past, present, and future ecosystem dynamics; (ii) pathways to adopt explicit CARE (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, Ethics) principles that preference Indigenous Data Sovereignty in the governance of the collected biological or geological data; and (iii) examples of ongoing co-designed projects with Indigenous community partners that explicitly preference the rights of Indigenous Peoples to determine how data about them and their lands will be collected and used.