We invite you to Naarm (Melbourne), on the traditional lands of the Kulin Nation, for ESA 2024. Learning about how nature works includes identifying fundamental driving processes, characterising important interactions, and communicating those discoveries effectively. This is how ecology advances, providing stories that engage and explain nature to a lay audience, as well as underpinning applications of our science to ecological problems with practitioners on-ground. Never has it been more important to do good science to understand ecological systems and to provide the evidence that supports sound environmental policies and effective conservation and management. The conference will showcase the science of ecology in Australia – across all its varied forms – and be an opportunity to explore the connection between science theory, science research, science policy and science on-ground outcomes. We look forward to seeing you at ESA 2024 to connect, share and inspire ecologists and those that use our work.

- John Morgan, Chair of the Local Organising Committee