From Gold Mines to Gumboots: Rod Ingersoll's Unlikely Path to Redclaw (#206)

How does a frog surveyor end up running a wildlife sanctuary in the PNG Highlands, working with gold mines, earning an OBE and then farming redclaw in far north Queensland? Dani sits down with Rod Ingersoll, environmental scientist, conservationist, farmer and author of Crayfish Cashflow: From Gold Mines to Gumboots.

Rod talks about his 22 years in Papua New Guinea, where he survived kidnappings and hundreds of gunpoint encounters, and helped protect 200,000 hectares of wilderness that turned up more than 50 species new to science. He tells us how he bought an aquaculture farm while looking for a single barramundi and lost it all in Cyclone Jasper. He also explains how he rebuilt with grants, volunteers and citizen science, running his own trials on pond aeration and redclaw trapping that challenge what many farmers believe.

It's a conversation about resilience and community, and about how much you can learn from your own backyard.

In this episode:

- Running a PNG wildlife sanctuary with no outside management

- Talking his way out of danger as the "Jungle Warrior"

- Working inside the mining industry to protect wilderness

- Surviving Cyclone Jasper and rebuilding Barron River Redclaw

- Farm-based research on aeration and trapping techniques

- Aquaponics, food security and starting small

Content note: This episode includes a reference to suicide. If you need support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.

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