18th Biennial Conference on Communication and Environment

COCE 2025 Proposal Deadline Extended to November 7th!

Welcome to COCE 2025 in Tasmania

The International Environmental Communication Association (IECA), in collaboration with the University of Tasmania's School of Creative Arts and Media (CAM), invites scholars, artists, practitioners, and activists to the 18th Biennial Conference on Communication and Environment (COCE). COCE 2025, taking place 23-27 June 2025 in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, will be a hybrid conference, offering opportunities for in-person and virtual presentation and participation, as well as interaction between in-person and virtual attendees. Submissions in familiar formats, as well as in creative and new formats, are welcomed until 11:59 pm PST 7 November 2024. Since 1991, COCE has provided a forum that encourages convivial collaboration across disciplines and sectors working in environmental communication. COCE’s first time in the Southern Hemisphere will feature both the familiarity of this widely beloved conference and the unconventional - we invite both submitters and non-submitting attendees to join us in shifts in perspective and experience ushered in through engaging in the edge. For those attending in-person, University of Tasmania, the world’s leading university for climate action (Times Higher Education Impact Rankings, 2022-2024), is working closely with local partners to meaningfully negate negative and increase positive environmental impacts of travel to COCE 2025. In addition, the COCE 2025 organizers are working diligently to manage costs, with the expectation that the in-person and virtual conference fees will tentatively remain the same as those for COCE 2023.

Photo Cover Credit: Kangaroos on Springlawn, Narawntapu National Park/Jess Blonde

Call for Proposals is Open!

COCE 2025 participants will be invited to consider how approaches to communication about/with/on/in environments could be “un-conventionalized” by calling in more community, diverse perspectives, and play as forms of research and praxis. Together, we will engage conviviality to usher in impactful sharing of ideas. Simultaneously, the conference welcomes approaches to the theme that carefully regard opposition and incompleteness in present or historical environmental relations. Find more information on the call for proposals here.

Important Dates:

Submissions close: 11:59 PST 7 November 2024
Notification of acceptance: 11:59 PST 15 December 2024
Conference registration opens: 15 December 2024
Full papers for accepted submissions due: 11:59 PST 15 May 2025

Photo Credit: Tawny Frogmouth - Bonorong Wildlife Park/Poon Wai Nang

Extra Opportunities for Conviviality at COCE 2025

Post-Conference Event: COCE 2025's post-conference will be an immersive 2 day/2 night Deep Ecology retreat facilitated by John Seed, the Australian father of the Deep Ecology movement, rainforest activist, and lead author (with Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming, and Arne Naess) of Thinking Like a Mountain, and co-facilitated by environmental communication scholar Tema Milstein. The immersive experience will include the Council of All Beings (created by Seed and Joanna Macy), as well as other experiential activities designed to generate community and culture-scale modes of ecological identification. The experience will offer COCE goers an opportunity to stretch themselves, get to know each other better, and also get to mingle with and know local folks who attend the retreat. Fees will be on a sliding scale and a few fee-free volunteer options may be available.

Photo Credit: Tasmanian Pepper Co./Jasper Da Seymour

Graduate & Early Career Pre-Conference Workshop: 2025 welcomes all graduate students and early career environmental communicators to join us on 23rd June 2025, for an engaging pre-conference workshop/gathering at Art Farm Birchs Bay. Art farm is a not-for-profit association established to foster engagement between community, artists, art, and the landscape. The pre-conference will offer the opportunity to network and mingle with other early career environmental communicators before the conference is officially launched. It will also involve meandering through a 2km sculpture trail with over 35 large public artworks, a 1-hour Q and A session with Head Farmer Chris Read who is an expert in the social aspects of botany and farming, and interactive/practical sessions that encourage attendees to stretch themselves to consider how to create work in conversation with the land/environment around them and employ unconventional approaches to environmental communication research. The day will conclude with a wine tasting session before returning to nipaluna (Hobart) for the official opening of the conference.

Fees for the preconference will be kept low and will be confirmed soon.

Photo Credit: Aurora Australis from Strahan/Dietmar Kahles

Hosted Excursions and Dark MOFO

Hosted Excursions: Several during-conference hosted experiential excursions into the bush and urban environments will be available for in-person attendees. More information will be provided as plans are finalised.

COCE 2025 Pre-Party: The Winter Solstice Dark MOFO Festival, which will run 5-15 June with a final event 21 June, will serve as an optional pre-party to the conference. COCE 2025 in-person attendees are welcome to arrive early, merry-make during the many festivities, and travel around Tasmania.

Conference Planning Committee

Tema Milstein - Conference Chair (University of New South Wales Sydney [UNSW]) / Alana Mann - Local Committee (School of Creative Arts and Media [CAM] | University of Tasmania) / Gabi Mocatta - IECA Chair/Local Committee Liaison (University of Tasmania, School of Geography, Planning and Spatial Science) / Mariko Thomas (Skagit Valley College / Big Mountain Consulting) & Kundai Chirindo (Lewis & Clark College) - Conference Program Chairs / Kathleen Hunt - Virtual Conference Chair (City of Durham) / Ella Muncie - Student Pre-Conference Chair (Leicester University) / Tania Leimbach - Outreach & Marketing Chair (UNSW Sydney) / Steve Depoe - Budget & Fundraising Chair (University of Cincinnati) / Linda Hunt - Volunteer & Excursion Committee Chair (School of Creative Arts and Media [CAM] | University of Tasmania) / Valentina Martinez - Registration and Attendees Management Chair (IECA)