Australia places ahigh cultural heritage value on the horse, from the Melbourne Cup to the opening of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.With a healthy diversity which ranges from horse racing to breeding, equestrian sports, stock horses and pleasureowners- keeping horses are a way of life for many thousands of Australians.

Horses are without a doubt a celebrated part of our Australian cultural heritage.

A call for presentations and papers is now open for the upcoming Australian Horse Keeping Conference to be held inMelbourne this November.

“Previous work undertaken in this field has identified that many small land holders are frequently not fromtraditional rural backgrounds, have little access to standard agricultural equipment or in fact, see themselves asfarmers at all.” said Julie Fiedler, Executive Officer of Horse SA and conference organiser. “Yet people now findthemselves as horse property managers, passionate about doing the best for their horses and wanting learn more.”

Often it is just a barrier of language and terminology.

Horse owners talk about weeds, dust, mud and emerging diseases. Scientists and natural resource managers talk aboutwater quality, biodiversity and climate impacts. Yet we are all talking about the same thing.

“The aim of this event is to bring a variety of people together to translate and exchange knowledge aboutsustainable horse keeping practices & knowledge in both directions – from the researcher down and grass roots up.”said Julie.

For more information about the Australian Horse Keeping Conference visit horse.org.au

Further information can be found on Horse SA.

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