From the award-winning Authors of First Nations Food Companion and founders of native food and education enterprise, Warndu.

Warndu (the Adnyamathanha word meaning ‘good’), an Aboriginal owned business whose foundation is based on the principle of ‘looking to the past to protect our future.’ Warndu successfully works in partnership with Aboriginal communities & businesses, harvesters, and growers across Australia, to source Native Ingredients and encourage our country to use them in their daily lives. Warndu draws upon the dynamic harvesting and healing practices of the past to open minds and to encourage an interconnection with all people, plants, and the earth. Their mission is to REGENERATE culture, tradition, community, health, seas, and soils.

Damien is an Adnyamathanha person from the Northern Flinders and Gammon Ranges in South Australia; a sacred place of immense social and environmental significance to the Adnyamathanha people. Damien’s paintings share family narratives that have existed for millennia, embedded in the Yarta (diverse landscapes) as a record and reminder for all diversities and identities of the unique and continuous - spiritual and cultural connection Aboriginal people have to Country.

He has worked as the South Australian Aboriginal Secondary Training Academy (SAASTA) Coordinator, at the Elite SAASTA Sports Academy and for the past decade as a teacher at Le Fevre High School with a special focus on supporting and educating Aboriginal students. Damien highlights key elements of successfully working with Aboriginal students as recognition and celebration of cultural identity, as well as developing and nurturing individual interests, broadening knowledge and understanding of career pathways, and providing opportunities to further sporting aspirations, which he also champions in his role as an Educator at the Tjindu Foundation.

Damien was a board member of the South Australian Native Title Service over a six year period; here members work in collaboration to support Aboriginal Nations to achieve Native Title through negotiation and consent, to reach cultural and economic aspirations and firmly establish their community goals of self-determination. Damien is also an Internationally renowned artist having exhibited his work in London and the acclaimed Rebecca Hossack Gallery and has worked alongside brands such as RAA and Scope Global on RAP artworks.

Rebecca is a YALE University World Fellow. A sustainable living advocate, he is a self-taught cook and has worked with some of the world’s best food producers, academics, activists, and chefs. A food curator, consultant, TV presenter, activist, author, regenerative farmer and social entrepreneur. Author of now ten books, Rebecca has worked on many a projects any food lover would envy, from launching the Real Food Festival in London to being Taste Curator on Slow Food Nation in San Francisco, farming coffee in Uganda to teaching scientists in the Maldives for the United Nations.

Rebecca completed her Masters in International Rural Development, Climate Change and Sustainable Agriculture at the Royal Agricultural University in Gloucestershire, UK in 2010, during which she focused on food security and a sustainable food future. Rebecca’s obsession with food began in Italy, so it followed course that she would become interested in the Slow Food Movement in which she spent years being both Youth Ambassador in the UK organising events, campaigns and of course eating. Today she has organised global and local events focussed on sustainability and food. 

After a decade working overseas, she has re-settled back in Australia and has launched The Granny Skills Movement – a community-supported movement that aims to protect the skills, heritage and traditions of our elders. As well as this she consults to organisations, running events, catering, education and strategy work in and around the food, environment and lifestyle sectors and sustainability. She teaches Natural Living and Cookery at River Cottage UK and The Agrarian Kitchen in Tasmania as well as part of the Food Entrepreneurship degree at Le Cordon Bleu Australia. Here her focus is ethical food and wine business as well as how to be a sustainable food entrepreneur.