Fenner School Seminar Series

Thursday 24 September - 1.00-2.00pm, Forestry Theatre, Forestry Building 48

Greg Buckman, PhD Scholar, Fenner School of Environment & Society “Renewable Electricity in Australia: the good, the bad and the mediocre”

HONOURS PROPOSAL SEMINARS

Monday 21 September – 2.00-2.30pm, SRES T, Geography Building. Speakers and (approximate) topics are:

• 2:00pm Ed Boydell – “Local Government and Climate Change Adaptation”
• 2:15pm Gail Sutton – “Assessing the feasibility of urban solar power systems”

HUMAN ECOLOGY FORUM

Friday 25 September , 10.00 – 12.00 noon, Room 101, Forestry Building

Deborah Cleland, PhD Scholar, Fenner School of Environment & Society

“Finding a way out for subsistence fisheries across the Pacific?”

Deb will focus on small island communities in Indonesia, Costa Rica and the Philippines. These communities are all facing various stages of ecosystem collapse, with falling catches being the first tangible feedback signals from a deteriorating environment. The responses range from proactive self-initiated conservation projects to ‘race to the bottom’ exploitation. She will discuss 1) how extreme the differences in ecological knowledge, ability to conceptualise the future, and organisational capacity are between communities; 2) how these three characteristics appear to be inter-related; and 3) how small differences in access to education and other resources can be the catalyst for rapid changes in environmental management (for both good and bad).

WELCOME

Carol Green will join the School Admin Office from 21 September to 12 October while Cathy Gray is on leave.

CONGRATULATIONS

Whitley Medal for Fenner School

Boom and Bust: Bird Stories for a Dry Country,edited by Libby Robin, Rob Heinsohn and Leo Joseph, has won the Whitley Medal, the nation’s most prestigious award for zoological publication. The editors received the Whitley Medal and Certificates on behalf of all the contributors at a special Whitley Awards ceremony at the Australian Museum in Sydney on the evening of Friday 18 September.

Boom and Bust has been a major Fenner initiative, displaying the versatility and variety of expertise in our corridors. All the chapters are about birds, but from very different perspectives, including ornithology, biology, ecology, archaeology, palaeontology, history and anthropology. Fenner authors include: Libby Robin, who wrote about the Emu as well as introducing the collection, Rob Heinsohn who wrote about Choughs and Mike Smith (Adjunct Professor) wrote about Genyornis (who didn’t survive in the dry country, and why) and also the concept of ‘boom and bust’ in desert archaeology. David Roshier (adjunct) wrote about Grey Teal and Julian Reid about Australian Pelican. Former Fenner staffer, Deborah Rose wrote about Rainbirds from an anthropological perspective.  The medal honours ‘a landmark contribution to the understanding, content or dissemination of zoological knowledge’. It rewards not just knowledge, but outreach, and making connections between science and society, all very much part of the Fenner vision.

We wrote these bird stories for bird-lovers and the wider public as a way to think about how we live in this dry country. Our book interweaves the natural and cultural histories of the birds, and also consider the ways in which people have understood natural history in this place that so often defies expectations shaped in wetter places in the northern hemisphere.

The stories are about birds adapting – or failing to adapt – to the limits of this dry country. But they are also about people. People change the places where birds live, and the birds can change the lives of people.

The Whitley Medal is the highest ranked of the Whitley Awards presented by the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales and is reserved for work of outstanding quality that makes a landmark contribution to zoological knowledge. It is also a great credit to the design and production of the publisher, CSIRO Publishing, who received a certificate for this.

The medal is named for Gilbert Whitley, zoologist and fish-specialist, curator of fishes at Sydney’s Australian Museum from 1925 to1964 and fellow of the zoological society. Whitley was also a great natural historian and communicator, who wrote much and edited the zoological society’s publications from 1947-71.

CONGRATULATIONS, Cont.

BRS Awards

Winners of the 2009 Science and Innovation Awards for Young People in Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry were announced at a presentation dinner at Parliament House on 15 September 2009.

Congratulations to the following Fenner current and past colleague who were recipients.

• Dr Lyndall Bull, Forests and Wood Products’ Australia Award Winner
• Dr Mira Durr, Sugar Research and Development Corporation Award Winner
• Dr Ana Rubio, Fisheries Research and Development Corporation Award Winner

Family Hutchinson

Won the family of three category in The Canberra Times Fun Run on Sunday 13 September. Mostly due to Mike’s sons of course, David and Henry.

MORNING TEA

Divya Dass and Peter Jones will be hosting this week’s morning tea in the John Banks Courtyard

PUBLICATIONS

Young, M., Lamb, D., Doran, B. 2009. Mountains and Molehills: a spatiotemporal analysis of poker machine expenditure in the Northern Territory of Australia, Australian Geographer, 40, 3, 249-269.

Forthcoming conferences, meetings, etc

Richard Greene, John Field, Sue Holzknecht and Ejaz Qureshi (VF FSES) are accompanying 40 Land and Catchment Management students from 25-28 Sept. for the Trangie marginal rangelands field trip
Carola Kuramotto de Bednarik, attending the Bushfire CRC annual conference.

INFORMATION

Native grassland restoration volunteers wanted: on campus on Thursday 15th October.

Volunteers are wanted to help restore an ecologically significant native grassland remnant on campus on Thursday 15 October from 12.45 to 3.15 pm. The work will mostly involve weeding. This is a great opportunity to get to know some of the local flora. Participation will be limited to 12 volunteers. Please register with John Fitzgerald by October 8th on john.fitzgerald@anu.edu.au. Volunteers should wear sturdy, enclosed footwear and bring a hat and water bottle. Volunteers should meet at the bus stop outside Old Canberra House (building 73) on Lennox Crossing by 12:45."

The popular

Australian Forest History Series including 'Perfumed Pineries: Environmental history of Australia's Callitris forests by John Dargavel, Diane Hart and Brenda Libbis is now available online at the Fenner School of Environment and Society website:

http://fennerschool.anu.edu.au/publications/books/forest_history_series.php 

A series of books reporting on research and writing on Aboriginal burning, the ancient pollen record, landscape formation, regeneration and grazing, forest management, the resurgence of koalas, microscopic secrets in the wood, heritage surveys and much more.