Our Story

Invertebrates are an essential foundation for all life on earth, including our own. At odds with their undeniable importance, ubiquity, and staggering diversity, they are often neglected in conservation, with threatened species listings and environmental campaigns often biased towards birds, mammals and other species. One of the main drivers of this problem is a lack of public awareness of the importance of invertebrates to our lives and the threats that they face.

Invertebrates Australia (IA) was founded in 2021 by three female scientists - Dr Kate Umbers, Dr Jess Marsh and A/Professor Tanya Latty. All three founders are internationally renowned experts in the field of invertebrate conservation and possess a deep understanding of the threats to invertebrates and a determination to champion their cause.

Like so many good things, they started talking about forming a group that could advocate for Australian invertebrates as more of a dream than a plan. The main thing that characterised all of their conversations was shared excitement; at some level they were aware that a seed had been planted.

The event that turned this excitement into action was the catastrophic Australian mega-fires of 2019-2020. The event itself was alarming and the inability to quickly and adequately assess how the fires impacted invertebrates highlighted a huge void in our knowledge and a clear need for an invertebrate-focused conservation organisation.