Program

Workshops

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Acoustic Localisation

Proposal: This workshop’s main target audience is ecologists and everybody who is interested in broadening their understanding of bioacoustic methodology. In this hour-long session, after a short introduction into the field of bioacoustic monitoring, participants will learn how to set up our bioacoustic recorders, use array configuration, test the machines for their functionality, and how the resulting data can be processed and mapped.

Localisation through bioacoustics is becoming increasingly popular among ecological consultants and researchers, and it is a valuable, low-impact, and low-cost tool for monitoring population density and occupancy of target species in a region. Especially animals that show cryptic behavior and are difficult to observe actively can be detected and monitored this way. This workshop supports collaboration and knowledge exchange in conservation technology by demonstrating an accessible, replicable, and standardised approach to acoustic localization. Workshop participants will learn how to correctly collect, store, and process bioacoustic data. Ultimately, the goal is to fosters partnerships between ecologists, engineers, and technologists advancing wildlife monitoring.

Active participants will need to bring their own laptops, as software and example data will be provided to work along with the workshop explanations.

Duration: Half-day (approx. 3 hours)

Workshop lead: Frontier Labs

Maximum number of participants: 300

Developing best practice guidelines for ecoacoustics in Australia

Proposal: Ecoacoustic studies are often used to support developments impacting our native wildlife and spaces. There is concern that lack of standardisation in practice may be resulting in insufficient surveys, inconsistent data collection and misinterpretation of results.

To increase awareness and understanding of the technique, we are developing a guideline to provide foundational knowledge and set minimum standards for best practice across the discipline. This will facilitate the appropriate use of the technique in a wider range of applications and promote consistency and standardisation, enabling effective data sharing and supporting robust scientific investigation. The guideline will include practice in audible and ultrasonic applications and is intended for use by anyone involved with acoustic monitoring in Australia.

The project is working to ensure these guidelines reflect best practices and encourage adoption within the community and industry.

During this workshop, we will introduce the project, then hold an interactive session that promotes discussion and gathers feedback that will contribute towards the guideline development."

Duration: Half-day (approx. 3 hours)

Workshop lead: May-Le Ng & Kristen Thompson - Ecoacoustics Guidelines Australia Project

Maximum number of participants: TBD

Building and Running Recognisers with Ecosounds

Proposal: This workshop is for researchers and ecoacoustics practitioners undertaking acoustic monitoring of the environment for their species of interest. We will use the Ecosounds cloud platform to build call recognisers, run them at scale, verify detections and make sense of the results.

Prior to the workshop, participants will upload their datasets to Ecosounds, either as public projects or private projects accessible only to them.

During the workshop participants will:

Learn some basic, high-level theory on convolutional neural network embeddings.
Build a custom call recogniser using Perch embeddings.
Learn how to run this recogniser at scale over large ecoacoustic datasets in the cloud.
Use the Ecosounds verification tools to rapidly validate detections.
Explore methods to aggregate detections and incorporate results into their research.

While we are using the Ecosounds platform for this workshop, the recognisers you build will be able to be used independently (without Ecosounds) on your own compute resources in the future.

As part of our commitment to Open Science we request that all recognisers are made freely available and open source. Note: there is no obligation to make audio open, and uploading to ecosounds does not relinquish ownership of that data in any way.

This workshop will be run by the Open Ecoacoustics team with support from the ARDC.

Duration: Full day (approx. 6 hours)

Workshop lead: Philip Eichinski - Open Ecoacoustics

Maximum number of participants: 25

Dandhigu Yimbana: Listening on Country and the Ethics of Ecoacoustics

Proposal: Ecoacoustics holds profound potential for communities whose relationships with Country are inseparable from health and wellbeing — yet the discipline remains disproportionately concentrated within well-resourced institutions and scientific research. This workshop invites delegates to explore how ecoacoustics can be practised and shared more equitably and ethically, drawing on the framework from the ARC Discovery Indigenous project “Dandhigu Yimbana: Listening on Country for Social and Emotional Wellbeing”.

This workshop positions listening as a relational act and will bring together First Nations scholars, researchers, practitioners, and community members to examine the ethical foundations of field recording and acoustic monitoring. Participants will engage with questions around permission and consultation for ecoacoustic recording and how to embed Indigenous data sovereignty and knowledge into ecoacoustic research. The workshop will involve practical ecoacoustic field recording and listening on Country, and is suitable for emerging and experienced scientists and researchers wanting to explore the ethical foundations of sound recording and the interdisciplinary potential of listening as a method to inform research decisions.

The session aligns with WEC 2026’s commitment to diversity and inclusion and the theme “Making ecoacoustics accessible”. All field recording equipment will be provided, and the participation of Elders are resourced through ARC Discovery funding.

Duration: Full day (approx. 6 hours)

Workshop lead: Dr Leah Barclay - University of the Sunshine Coast, Creative Ecologies Research Cluster

Maximum number of participants: 25

Reservoir Project

Proposal: This participatory workshop explores relationships between water, sound, and ecological grief through embodied listening and collaborative sonic practice. Rooted in my interdisciplinary background in sound art, somatics, and permaculture design, the workshop invites participants to consider water not only as environmental infrastructure but as a living system we inhabit. Drawing from hydrofeminist perspectives in Thinking with Water and ecoacoustic practices such as Water and Memory by Annea Lockwood, the session examines how sound and embodied awareness can restore relational ways of knowing water in times of ecological crisis.

Participants begin with guided somatic listening exercises that attune attention to the body as a fluid system shaped by breath and internal rhythms. Through small gestures with water, stones, and vessels, they explore how subtle movements generate sound and how water can function as a sonic collaborator. The workshop culminates in a participatory ritual adapted from grief practices described by Francis Weller. Participants place a stone representing personal or ecological grief into a shared vessel of water while others create soft wave-like vocalizations. The sounds of stones, water, and voices are recorded and played back as a temporary sonic sculpture, emphasizing collective listening and relational ecology.

Duration: Half-day (approx. 3 hours)

Workshop lead: Jai - Arizona State University

Maximum number of participants: 22

From Priorities to Practice: Building a Global Bioacoustics “Network of Networks”

Proposal: This workshop builds upon a global bioacoustics horizon scan identifying priorities across five themes: next-generation recorders, analytical methods, data exchange, global participation, and scaled impact. Following a successful regional workshop at ICTC Peru, this three-hour session aims to design a collaborative, regional-node-based global infrastructure: a ““Network of Networks”” to organize and execute future actions.

The session maximizes co-design. After an introduction covering the horizon scan and lessons from Peru, participants will divide into groups to identify action steps and technical barriers across three areas. Theme 1 (Data & Standards) focuses on PAM metadata, annotation protocols, large datasets, and soundscape databases. Theme 2 (AI & Rigor) addresses recognizer building and incorporating machine detection uncertainty into reporting. Theme 3 (Equity) explores ways to make ecoacoustics globally accessible.

Following a break, a 60-minute facilitated mapping exercise will guide the group. We will collaboratively map connections between existing regional networks, labs, and initiatives to execute action plans, effectively defining the overarching network’s foundational architecture.

Expected outcomes include an ““Action Roadmap”” addressing key themes and the formal initiation of the Bioacoustics Network of Networks, complete with defined participant nodes, scoped collaborative projects, and communication channels to ensure sustained momentum.

Duration: Half-day (approx. 3 hours)

Workshop lead: John Quinn - Furman University

Maximum number of participants: 45