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Seminars held at former* CRES
Thursday 12:30 - 1:30
CRES Seminars are usually held in the Seminar Room, Level 6,
Hancock Building West (43), Biology Place, ANU.
(Take lift to Level 5, then take stairs to Level 6)
* The Fenner School, was formed in early 2007, which incorporates the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies (CRES) and the School of Resources, Environment and Society (SRES). Founded in 1973, CRES established a national and international reputation as a leader in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research and postgraduate training. SRES was formed from the ANU Departments of Geography and Forestry in 2001 with a major focus on research and education on the relationships between people and environment.
SEMINARS HELD IN 2006:
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CRES SEMINAR SERIES January-December
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| 2 March |
Strategic science and the Empty North
Dr Libby Robin. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies. Australian National University
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| 9 March |
Savanna tree dynamics in Kakadu National Park: fire, buffalo, and ecological cascades
Professor Emeritus Patricia Werner. Visiting Fellow, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University. Professor Emeritus, University of Florida. Adjunct Professor, Charles Darwin University.
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| 16 March |
From Conflict to Mandatory Industry Best Practice National Strategy: Aá Win-Win in Diffuse Source Pollutant Discharge in Coastal Zones
Professor Ian White. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies. Australian National University
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| 23 March |
Landscape modification and habitat fragmentation: a synthesis for research and management
Dr Joern Fischer. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies. Australian National University
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| 30 March |
Future scenarios for grazing lands in southern Australia: putting it all together
Dr Ann Hamblin. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies. Australian National University
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| 6 April |
The design and analysis of landscape scale natural æexperimentsÆ: Three case studies in ecology
Dr Ross Cunningham. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies. Australian National University
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| 20 April |
Sensitivity assessment of complex environmental models
Professor John Norton and Dr Barry Croke. Integrated Catchment Assessment and Management Australian National University
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| 27 April |
Australian and Canadian Roughness - Modelling cliffs and lakes across the continents of Australia and North America
Professor Mike Hutchinson. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies. Australian National University
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| 4 May |
A continental analysis of Australian climate trends
Dr Jenny Kesteven. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies. Australian National University
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| 11 May |
Greenhouse gas emissions from sugarcane soils and nitrogen fertilizer management
Dr Tom Denmead. CSIRO Land and Water
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| 18 May |
For love of water
Dr Debbie Bird Rose. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies. Australian National University
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| 25 May |
Australia's National Carbon Accounting System - policy driving science rigor
Gary Richards. Australian Greenhouse Office, Environment Australia
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| 1 June |
Water and the Constitution - historians v lawyers
Daniel Connell. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies. Australian National University
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| 20 July |
Learning for Sustainability Change management on a national and generational scale.
Adjunct Professor Paul Perkins. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies. Australian National University
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| 27 July |
Technology assessment, social consequences and decision-making for sustainability
Dr A. Wendy Russell. School of Biological Sciences. University of Wollongong
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| 3 August |
Sustainable Land Transport ¡ intracity and intercity
Dr Philip Laird. School of Mathematics and Applied Statistics. University of Wollongong
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| 4 August |
Ecotoxicology in estuarine ecosystems
Dr Geoff Macfarlane. School of Biological Sciences, University of Newcastle
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| 10 August |
Urban Water Supply - Some Issues
Professor Patrick Troy. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies. Australian National University
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| 17 August |
A colonial forester in New Zealand; the latter career of Sir David Hutchins 1915-1920.
Professor Mike Roche. School of People, Environment and Planning. Massey University
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| 24 August |
Migration, molecules and modelling in some South American and Australian birds: early findings and challenges
Dr Leo Joseph. Australian Wildlife Collection, Sustainable Ecosystems CSIRO
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| 31 August |
Towards a sustainable sugarcane industry
Robert Quirk. Sugarcane Grower, Condong Mill NSW; Board member of Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority
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| 7 September |
The Anthropocene: From Hunter-Gatherers to a Global Geophysical Force
Professor Will Steffen. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies. Australian National University
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| 21st September |
Operationalising Sustainable Development: The Significant Opportunities for Boundary Organisations in the 21st Century.
Michael Smith. ANU CRES Departmental Visitor, Research Co-Ordinator for The Natural Edge Project
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| 28 September |
The construction of the grasslands in the 'newest England”: New Zealand 1850s-1920.
Professor Tom Brooking. University of Otago
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| 12 October |
Robust Energy Transitions: Shockproofing Australia’s Future
Barney Foran. Visiting Fellow Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies. Australian National University
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| 20 October |
Economics of low carbon technology innovation: theory, evidence and implications
Professor Michael Grubb. Chief Economist, The Carbon Trust, UK, Visiting Professor of Climate Change and Energy Policy, Imperial College,London; Senior Research Associate, Faculty of Economics, Cambridge University
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| 26 October |
Water quality modelling and spatial data analysis to support sustainable land and water management
Dr Lachlan Newham. Integrated Catchment Assessment and Management Australian National University
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2nd March 2006
Strategic Science and the Empty North
Dr Libby Robin. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University
Environment, science and nation-building have worked together as important influences on the history of Australia since European occupation. They are the themes of Nature and Nation, my new book-in-progress. The great experimental ground of northern Australia provides a particularly cogent case study of ‘a task for a nation’. In the Northern Territory, anxiety about ‘empty’ land has driven many grand plans for development. Science has been central to such development plans in every era.
This paper will consider changing scientific and national visions for the north from the first establishment of northern ports in the 1820s up to the present. It particularly follows the waxing and waning fortunes of Daly River, the site of one of the Commonwealth’s first Experimental Farms in 1912. Daly River became a major agricultural centre for feeding troops in the second World War. After the war, it was recommended by CSIR’s Land Survey Section as a key centre for post-war northern agricultural developments. Daly River is also an area with major new agricultural developments proposed in the twenty-first century. Each of the new developments – since cattle and sugar production in the 1870s – has taken little heed of the previous chequered history of Daly River and its enterprises. In 1947, Nugget Coombs declared that Northern Australia remained ‘one of the largest under-developed areas in the world’, and these sentiments continue to echo today, despite well-publicised new concerns about biodiversity conservation and global change. |
9th March 2006
SAVANNA TREE DYNAMICS IN KAKADU NATIONAL PARK: FIRE, BUFFALO, AND ECOLOGICAL CASCADES
Professor Patricia A. Werner. Visiting Fellow, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University. Professor Emeritus, University of Florida. Adjunct Professor, Charles Darwin University
In general, scientists consider tree–grass ratios of savanna biomes as inherently unstable and able to be shifted quite easily by changes in fire, grazing, or climate. In the Top End of Australia, savanna eucalypt woodlands cover about 80% of the 20,000 km2 that make up Australia’s largest national park, Kakadu National Park (KNP). Over the past half-century the region has experienced two major environmental changes: an exponential increase and then decline in numbers of a feral large grazer (Asian swamp buffalo) and shifts in prescribed fire regimes toward increased early dry season burning after millennia of Aboriginal fire management. Over that same time, tree populations have shows very little recruitment of individuals from the ground-level “juveniles” to sapling stages, resulting in today’s bimodal size distributions with many mid-size trees and many small suppressed trees less than 1.5 metres in height. Park management has played a historical role in these changes and today determine to a great extent the park’s grazing and fire protocols. An important question is whether the current regime is appropriate for long-term sustainability of the savanna eucalypt woodlands. In this seminar, I report on long-term field experiments on the role of buffalo, fire, and alterations in herbaceous vegetation as they affect population dynamics of the canopy trees, emphasizing the recruitment of juvenile (<1.5 m tall) trees into sapling and adult size categories. The studies reveal “ecological cascades” historically initiated by buffalo grazing which affected fuel loads and competitive regimes, which in turn affected tree growth, survival, and recruitment. Hysteresis effects were very strong when buffalo were removed later, and this phenomenon had consequences for tree survival when trees were subsequently burnt. Further, early dry season fires, thought to have little impact on over storey vegetation, were not at all benign for juvenile and sapling trees. Current research explores the degree to which the savanna woodlands are now on a trajectory of change in tree–grass ratios and/or have been irreversibly changed to a new state wherein the eucalypt canopy will be lost entirely, and much of KNP will move from savanna woodland to savanna grassland. |
16th March 2006
From Conflict to Mandatory Industry Best Practice National Strategy: A Win-Win in Diffuse Source Pollutant Discharge in Coastal Zones
Professor Ian White. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University
While we have been relatively successful in decreasing point discharges of water pollutants, the control of diffuse non-point sources remains a major global challenge particularly in coastal areas. Appropriate information, participatory processes and wise practice agreements appear to be key elements in reducing conflicts over the diffuse source discharges and over use and management of coastal resources. In this work we describe the evolution of a cooperative learning approach to coastal floodplain management, incorporating these elements. Government-encouraged drainage of coastal floodplains in eastern Australia caused accelerated oxidation of acid sulfate soils and export of diffuse acidic drainage into streams. Major impacts on infrastructure, ecology, fisheries and aquaculture resulted. In the Tweed River estuary, in 1987, all gilled organisms were killed by acid discharge from floodplain canelands. This generated major conflicts between fishers, environmentalists and sugarcane producers. A cooperative learning partnership evolved, involving cane farmers, local government, and researchers, has produced better strategies for managing sulfidic estuarine areas and mitigating impacts on downstream ecosystems. These underpinned mandatory best practice management guidelines for the NSW sugar industry. Increases in productivity and decreases in acid discharge have resulted. Fish kills on the Tweed and elsewhere also generated broader, parallel whole-of-government approaches that led to Australia’s national strategy for managing coastal acid sulfate soils and the rapid adoption of information and strategies across Australia.
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23rd March 2006
Landscape modification and habitat fragmentation: a synthesis for research and management
Joern Fischer. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University
Landscape modification and habitat fragmentation threaten native species and ecosystems around the world. This seminar will (1) synthesise key themes in fragmentation-related research, (2) clarify the links between these themes, and (3) provide a conceptual framework to study and conserve species in human-modified landscapes. Key themes discussed will include: typical patterns of landscape modification, typical consequences for native species and ecosystems, conceptual models to understand the ecological effects of landscape modification, exogenous and endogenous threats affecting single species (habitat loss, habitat degradation, habitat isolation; changes to biology, behaviour and species interactions), relationships between human-perceived landscape patterns and species diversity (vegetation patches, landscape connectivity, edge effects), and the notions of cascading effects and regime shifts arising from landscape modification. Existing attempts to understand and mitigate landscape modification fall along a continuum of approaches focusing on (1) individual species and ecological processes versus (2) human-defined landscape patterns and multiple species’ distributions. The strengths and weaknesses of both types of approaches will be discussed. It will be argued that the two sets of approaches are highly complementary. On this basis, a strategic mix of pattern- and process-based management principles will be suggested. These guiding principles provide a scientifically defensible starting point for the integration of conservation and production, which is urgently required from both an ecological and long-term economic perspective.
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30th March 2006
Future Scenarios for Australia’s southern grazing lands:putting it all together
Dr Ann Hamblin, Visiting Fellow Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, ANU
An estimated ninety million hectares of sown and rough grazing constitute the largest land use of Australia’s more intensive agricultural zone. Over the past two decades grazing lands have been implicated in contributing substantially to natural resource degradation and biodiversity loss from southern Australia. The synopsis of resource condition provided by the National Land and Water Resources Audit in 2001-2 clearly demonstrated the scale of the problem. However, despite the continuing decline of the fortunes of the wool industry and the size of the national flock, the area under pasture has not declined significantly, and in the north east tree clearing has actually increased the amount of land used for extensive grazing. Government-supported measures, based on increased scientific knowledge and technological solutions designed to abate secondary salinity, acidification, biodiversity loss, water pollution from runoff, and remnant vegetation decline have been only weakly effective in reversing environmental degradation. Progress in managing secondary salinity is given as an example. The prognosis for the condition of many rural environments under a ‘business as usual’ future option appears bleak. What other options are available, and what possible external and unforeseen interventions may alter this apparently bleak future? This seminar will investigate possible and expected impacts of projected changes in population size, future climates, land, water and oil-gas prices and other market forces on the extent and role of grazing lands in the next thirty years. The central wheat belt of Western Australia will be used as a more detailed case study to indicate the likely outcomes from these factors. Under nearly all scenarios, improved environmental conditions in the future appear to require more deliberate intervention by government than is politically acceptable at present. |
6th April 2006
The design and analysis of landscape scale natural ‘experiments’: Three case studies in ecology
Ross Cunningham. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University
I will discuss the adaptation of key principles of experimental design to the design of large-scale studies in ecology. Ideas will be illustrated by three recent studies undertaken jointly with David Lindenmayer. Philosophical questions about principles of inference and pragmatism will be explored. I will also highlight differences in the structure of data generated by each design and discuss the consequences for inference and the choice of appropriate statistical models for analysis. |
20th April 2006
Novel and practical methods of sensitivity assessment to inform NRM decision-making
John Norton and Barry Croke. ICAM/Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies/MSI, Australian National University
Lip service is paid to sensitivity assessment (SA) in many reports on simulation models for natural-resource management, but only occasionally is SA actually performed. Its motivation is wide. It may be used to find out what parts of the model are dominant, essential or redundant, to see the likely effects of parameter inaccuracies and uncertainties, to gauge what new information would be most beneficial, and to investigate the nature of the model responses (for instance, how large a part interaction and non-linearity play, and how the amplitude, spatial and temporal scope of responses depend on parameter values).
Usually SA is carried out by one of a small selection of techniques: (i) simply perturbing model parameters one at a time and perhaps also in combinations by fixed amounts, and finding the resulting model-output changes, or (ii) determining the relative contributions to the mean-square model-output variation of systematic orthogonal variations in different parameters or parameter combinations, or (iii) examining the output disributions due to Monte Carlo samples of the parameter values. Option (i) requires the nominal parameter values and sizes of the parameter changes to be specified and gives little insight unless a range of such changes is applied, implying a large number of simulation runs. Moreover some interactions may be missed. The information considered by option (ii) is confined to mean-square variations, not enough for many purposes, and option (iii) has to make an awkward compromise between computing load and throughness of coverage of parameter space. None of the methods takes explicit account of the fact that the user is normally interested in several, perhaps many, aspects of model behaviour. For instance, - the user may wish to know over what parameter ranges the model outputs and state variables all remain credible or jointly lead to a particular ranking of management actions in given scenarios - the issue may be how much the parameters and//or inputs can vary before a qualitatively different response occurs; in an extreme case, one may be worried about possible transition of the state to the domain of attraction of another, worse equilibrium point - it may be necessary to check whether similar behaviour arises over two or more separate ranges of the parameter values. The seminar will discuss some means by which this unsatisfactory situation may be improved. The first is to analyse the effects of parameter changes on model responses algebraically where possible, yielding insight and not restricted to small or fixed changes. Examples from models used in iCAM will be given. The second is to pose SA as translating a number of given restrictions of the model outputs or state into restrictions on the parameters. This is a special case of set inversion, a problem which arises widely and is the topic of a current ARC Linkage project in iCAM.. The third idea is to treat SA as a search for parameter values which make the model outputs do specific things.
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11th May 2006
GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS FROM SUGARCANE SOILS AND NITROGEN FERTILIZER MANAGEMENT
O.T. DENMEAD. CSIRO Land and Water, Canberra
We present the results of two investigations into greenhouse gas emissions from sugarcane soils, one recent and one current, and evaluate the measurement techniques employed. Both projects have employed micrometeorological methods and the current one uses automatic chambers to verify the micrometeorological measurements. Both systems have been found to be reliable and mutually consistent. The aim of the current project is to obtain continuous, season-long, verified data sets for emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane from sugarcane soils, both the acid-sulfate soils (ASS) of northern NSW and non-ASS more representative of the Queensland cane producing areas. Results to date indicate that emissions of CO2 from ASS are in the top of the range for agricultural soils, emissions of N2O from N-fertilised soils appear to be much higher than expected from agricultural soils, amounting at times to > 0.4 kgN ha-1 d-1, and that ASS are sources of atmospheric CH4 particularly when very wet when their emissions are comparable with rice fields and wetlands.
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18th May 2006
For Love of Water: Indigenous Water Wisdom
Deborah Rose. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University
This paper draws on encounters with Aboriginal people’s interactions with water. My aim is to examine these encounters as steps toward a more sustainable philosophical ecology of water. I am working with the definition of philosophical ecology as ‘our conceptions of our place and task in this world’. This engaging term crosses the two cultures of the humanities and science and asks deeply integrative question about humans and the living world. I take up the challenge in relation to water and in an arena that is cross-cultural. Can a philosophical ecology in which water is a partner in dialogue help to change and invigorate concepts of resource use? Can the multiple voices of water and human expression call us into more powerful forms of synergistic co-presence? Working across knowledge paradigms and across genres of communication, this analysis explores some of the challenges of Indigenous water wisdom for the 21st century. |
25th May 2006
Australia's National Carbon Accounting System - policy driving science rigor
Gary Richards. Australian Greenhouse Office, Environment Australia
This presentation looks at the processes for national greenhouse gas inventories, and using Australia as a case study, how these have evolved over time. The inventory process is adaptive of new science methods, and has rapidly pushed the application of these methods into wide-scale implementation. Unlike many situations where science ‘lobbies’ for a policy response, in the accounting of greenhouse gases the international policy community has placed high demand on emerging sciences. Bringing forward this scientific research into national application has been challenging, and for many countries there has been limited progress. The main driver of the demand on science was a need for greater accuracy, transparency and ‘stratification’ (of lands and activities giving rise to emissions). The requirements set out in the Marrakech Accords, and subsequently elaborated in the IPCC 2003 Good Practice Guidance were comprehensive (e.g. national coverage of forested areas) yet a fine resolution (maximum area for a forest definition of 1 hectare). Equally as challenging was the temporal frequency of change to be identified, e.g., changes in forested areas and associated emissions on an annual basis. The effect of this challenging policy prescription was to remove many of the typical barriers to the adoption of new methods in natural resource inventory. These barriers can be described as: institutional and organizational a need to maintain time-series consistency skills needed to implement and interpret pragmatic logistical issues risk aversion. A frequent response to these barriers is – if there is not a substantive problem with what is being done, then why change. In responding to the new greenhouse gas inventory policy specifications, what was traditionally being done was inadequate, and update was an imperative. In Australia’s case, new elements were drawn from things that had been done before, i.e., they were proven techniques, but were yet to be taken to a fully operational national scale. Characterizing the new were a 25m remote sensing of land cover change with 14 sequences between 1972 and 2005; monthly 1km climate surfaces since 1970; and a process driven full C:N ratio cycling, mass balance ecosystem model implemented nationally at a 25m grid resolution with a monthly time-step. The full capability of Australia’s inventory is being progressively implemented over a three phase, 10 year program. First used for national reporting in 2002 the program is now in its 7th year of operation, and dealing with ‘mid-life’ issues. The balance between repeat reporting (now for the 4th time), and ongoing development of new capacity; the need to adapt to new methods and ideas while trying to consolidate existing capacities; the need to continually look at delivery systems and mechanisms to engage research services while also maintaining stability in provider networks. Critical to managing this dynamic is the ongoing relationship with research institutions, and in particular with universities. The intent of these relationships is that the research institutions be challenged in emerging and developmental areas, while private sector participation provides the more routine technical services. The interaction with universities is of particular importance as it provides an opportunity to develop research nodes outside of the operational environment, and allows for ‘generational’ input through the graduate schools.
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1st June 2006
Water and the constitution – historians v lawyers
Daniel Connell. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University
The overwhelming consensus among legal researchers who have written about Section 100 of the Australian constitution is that it provides a strong restraint on the potential for the national government to act in ways that impinge upon irrigation in the various states (particularly within the Murray-Darling Basin). Given this agreement there can be no dispute about the way in which the High Court would view the matter. From a historical perspective, however, this is very curious. The delegates at the constitutional convention thought that they had constructed Section 100 so as to achieve the opposite result. Further, the final formulation, although arrived at only after the longest debate about any single issue in the constitutional debates, was consistent with the approach to water policy developed independently by the colonial governments for their own jurisdictions in the years immediately preceding the constitutional convention in 1897 and 1898. In each case they largely abolished the old riparian water entitlements subject to the courts and replaced them with systems of water management directly controlled by governments, a position that was recently reaffirmed in the National Water Initiative approved by the Council of Australian Governments in 2004. In addition, from the perspective of the research literature about adaptive catchment management in the early twenty first century, that approach arguably provides a better basis for water management than would a system where government policy was shaped by the need to take account of the courts. When considered together the differing opinions of lawyers and historians about Section 100 (or at least some lawyers and this historian) provide a fertile context for speculation and dispute about the nature and significance of the Australian constitution.
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20th July 2006
Learning for Sustainability; change management on a national and generational scale
Adjunct Professor Paul Perkins. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University
The synergies arising from the inter-relatedness and complexity of the geography of our uniquely bio-diverse continent, the once in a lifetime national policy focus on the National Water Initiative, growing consensus on the threats of climate change, the awareness of ESD principles as we commence the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable development (UNDESD), …and commence the development of a new National Action Plan for Learning for Sustainability….all invite commitment to systemic cultural and institutional change to ensure our quality of life is sustainable in the face of unprecedented natural and human-induced pressures on our natural resources. This paper canvasses the emergence of new policy approaches in water reform in the context of environmentalism, competition reform and climate change. It revisits the simple constructs of “think globally act locally” and “reduce, reuse, recycle” and draws on identified best practise and benchmark applications in policy, administration, operations and community engagement. Major activist and political focus has been on environmental protection in the face of human induced climate change, with too little holistic long term research and planning on integrated responses for example to climate change and water system management (IWSM). This has led to increasing short-termism, adversarialism and distrust in the community, and as the issues become more politicised, inter-agency dysfunction and complexity in decision making, the antithesis of innovative improvement schemes. This scenario persists. It discusses the emerging “Learning for Sustainability” paradigm and proposes that the water sector can be the focus of Australia’s “early adoption” initiatives with better and earlier results for improved public health, water security, environmental outcomes and ultimately national competitive advantage. It presents water as the long term research, engagement, learning and development focus around a proposition designed to encourage broad ranging debate, viz: “Can Australia develop methods to produce twice as much food for export over 25 years, using say half as much water?” Success demands as a pre-condition the acceptance of risk and uncertainty and new partnership models for adaptive responses to climate change. It needs a heavy emphasis on good information, engagement of the whole community, rural and urban, green and brown, in the discussion, planning and then efficient implementation of agreed reforms. It is an unprecedented change management challenge on a societal level. Success requires commitment to systemic cultural and institutional change. New partnerships of mid to long term and multi disciplinary researchers with policy integrators and implimentors of research effort are crucial
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27th July 2006
Technology assessment, social consequences and sustainability
Wendy Russell. School of Biological Sciences, University of Wollongong
This seminar introduces a recently launched ARC-funded project with Frank Vanclay, University of Tasmania and Heather Aslin, Bureau of Rural Sciences. The aim of the project is to develop a framework for Technology Assessment (TA) in Australia. As Australia continues to 'build our future through science and innovation', there is a parallel need for mechanisms to assess and manage new technologies, and innovation generally, in relation to their consequences for society.
Current discussions of the societal implications of technologies tend to focus on questions of risk. They often fail to consider the core effects of technologies and their profound influence on our ways of life and our social systems. Take the example of mobile phones. There has been considerable discussion of health risks that may be associated with their use, but little debate about the profound changes they have brought to communications and social life. Our framework is aimed at considering the range of effects of new technologies by considering the social consequences. Thus, we have named it TASC (Technology Assessment that considers the Social Consequences).
We are currently reviewing international TA, particularly in relation to best practice and institutional context, and using evidence from a recent study tour, I will outline different models of TA from the US and Europe and their relevance for Australia. I will discuss the possible roles for TA in Australia, how it might be institutionalised, the challenges involved, and the various actors that might participate or have a stake in TA.
I will also discuss the links between technology and sustainability, which extend beyond the environmental risks and impacts of technologies, and their role in mitigating environmental problems. Technology, society and environment are intimately linked. The social consequences of a new technology, including changes in behaviour, changes in resource use, and even changes in our understandings of ourselves and the world around us, have profound effects on society's development and its sustainability. An understanding of these effects requires integrated, systems thinking that considers technology in context. We aim to test the TASC framework on case studies in agricultural biotechnology. How such an assessment process might operate in practice will be discussed using the example of a recent study on social aspects of biotechnology use in the cotton industry. |
3rd August 2006
Sustainable Land Transport - intra and intercity
Dr Philip Laird. School of Mathematic and Applied Statistics, University of Wollongong
Australia’s five mainland capital cities house over 60 per cent of the population. Cars and other passenger vehicles now drive over 80 billion car kilometres per year in these cities. Car has grown enormously since 1950, and continues to grow with high external costs, whist urban public transport use remains relatively static. Measures to change this, including recommendations of a 2005 House of Representatives’ Committee report ‘Sustainable Cities’, are outlined. The talk also outlines inter capital city land freight, the high external costs of road freight, and measures to increase rail’s share of this market. |
4th August 2006
Ecotoxicology in estuarine ecosystems
Dr Geoff MacFarlane. Ecology and Ecotoxicology, University of Newcastle.
Geoff MacFarlane is an early career academic from the University of Newcastle, Australia. He manages the University's Ecology and Ecotoxicology Laboratory with funding support from ARC, FRDC and industry sources. Geoff was recently recognised for his teaching expertise being awarded the NSW Dept Education and Training Quality Teaching Award. Geoff's principal research interests are in the ecotoxicology of pollutants in estuarine environments. He is specifically interested in the effects of pollutants on estuarine biota, and their biological responses to pollutant stressors, which may be used as surrogates and more informative monitoring tools for pollution effects that measuring contaminant levels alone. Geoff's talk will detail how current ecotoxicological approaches need to think 'outside the beaker' ...assessing pollutant effects on 'real' organisms in 'real' environmental situations for adequate protection and maintenence of ecosystem health.
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17th August 2006
A colonial forester in New Zealand; the latter career of Sir David Hutchins 1915-1920
Professor Mike Roche. School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey University
In A Discussion on Australian Forestry the experienced colonial forester David Hutchins soundly criticised the report of the1913 Royal Commission on Forestry in New Zealand, for its lack of ‘technical advice on forestry’ and its acceptance the primacy of settlement even on marginal lands. Little was Hutchins to realise that in 1915 he would be invited to inspect and report on New Zealand forests. The paper discusses Hutchins efforts to promote ‘scientific forestry’, particularly in the Kauri forests but also looks at the range of opposition that he encountered. Hutchins ‘blue print’ for forestry in NZ was only partially realised for a number of reasons, some of which stem from his own personality. |
24th August 2006
Migration, molecules and modelling in some South American and Australian birds: early findings and challenges
Dr Leo Joseph. Australian Wildlife Collection, Sustainable Ecosystems CSIRO
An interest in the climatic correlates of bird migration within South America, a relatively poorly known subject, led me to more intensive DNA sequence-based work designed to tease apart phylogenetic and ecological components of bird migration. Results of using this approach to evolution and ecology of one taxonomically difficult group, the Myiarchus tyrant-flycatchers, will be summarized. Translating these methods to the very different Australian environment is a challenge that has gradually morphed into an interest in linking the population genetics and evolution of Australian arid zone birds to their ecology and environmental history. Results from this work to date will be presented and discussed in terms of my new position as Director of the ANWC and opportunities for work with CRES. |
31st August 2006
Towards A Sustainable Sugarcane Industry
Robert Quirk, Sugarcane Farmer Duranbah, 2002 Churchill Fellow, 2006 McKell Medalist
Nearly all aquatic fauna in the Tweed River died following floods in 1987. Initially agricultural pesticides were blamed but Tweed Shire Council (TSC) Entomologist, Clive Easton, identified the source as acidic, aluminium-rich drainage from the acid sulfate soils (ASS) of the floodplain, although less than 5 scientific papers about ASS had then been published in Australia. Clive’s 1989 seminal paper in Fishing World alerted many people to these problematic soils on the Tweed, including soil scientists Ian White and Mike Melville. TSC then took an internationally leading position and drew up a set of guidelines for managing ASS and in 1993 co-sponsored the 1st Australian Conference on ASS. Blaming of the sugarcane industry for the ASS problem initially caused strong denial. However, good sense and problem-ownership by growers at McLeods Creek saw them encourage research to better understand ASS occurrence, properties, and hydrology so that better management could be developed. Beginning with NSW Agriculture Minister, Ian Causley, ASSMAC was formed in 1994 to provide the Minister with advice on ASS management. A particularly important outcome from ASSMAC was the mapping (scale 1:25,000) of all NSW coastal ASS (about 0.5 Mha, and found in every estuary). Recent preliminary work on the National Atlas of Acid Sulfate Soils (see: www.asris.csiro.au) estimates Australian ASS as about 9.5 Mha. The NSW Sugar Industry also completed a field and laboratory survey of ASS on every cane farm and drew up individual plans for ASS management, based on a code of best-management-practice. State and Federal Governments began to develop policies and regulation for ASS management. The cane industry’s proactive work enabled NSW to reach a Memorandum of Understanding for the industry’s self-regulation on ASS, with annual, independent auditing of compliance. Meanwhile, back at McLeods Ck, I have been working with Ian, Mike, Ben Macdonald, and many Honours and PhD students from ANU and UNSW, to develop environmental stewardship and a sustainable farm management system that improves ASS soil health, provides much improved environmental outcomes, but also improves my profitability. There are many aspects of the system but it includes laser-leveling, strategic lime applications, hill-planting, legume companion-planting, green cane harvesting and trash retention, drain water level management, and most recently the trialing of a constructed wetland. We estimate that acidity discharge from my farm overall, has decreased by up to 80%. My productivity over the past 9 years has increased by 90%, including reduction by 25% in fertilizer and pesticide inputs and 50% reduction in unit cost of production. The research team (also including Tom Denmead, CSIRO, and Wollongong U researchers) is measuring sulfur, carbon, and nitrogen gas emissions from cane fields at Tweed. There are important new scientific outcomes in terms of global greenhouse gases from this research, but hopefully it will help better manage the sugarcane industry and overall, reduce Australia’s output of greenhouse gases. The NSW cane industry is also undertaking an electric power co-generation program with its 3 Mills, based on non-burning and whole-of-crop harvesting. This major shift from traditional practice accompanies a move to encourage minimal tillage and other greenhouse gas savings and the environmental stewardship encompassed in our Sugar Link Project. This Project will trace the supply chain from the field to the shelf and identify the verifiable environmental practices of the industry. |
7th September 2006
The Anthropocene: From Hunter-Gatherers to a Global Geophysical Force
Professor Will Steffen. Director, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University
For nearly all of human existence on Earth, we have been hunter-gatherers, capable of influencing the environment on local, and occasionally larger, scales but in general subject to the vagaries of the great forces of nature. In a remarkably short period of time, over just a few centuries, the human-environment relationship has reversed to the point that there is now concern for the future stability of the global environment because of the influence of human activities on Earth System functioning. This transformation has been especially rapid over the past 50 years, prompting some scientists to refer to this post-World War II period as the "Great Acceleration". How has this transformation occurred? When and how did humans begin to rival the great forces of nature in our influence on Earth System functioning? What are the stages of the Anthropocene and what are the major transitions between such stages? What has triggered the Great Acceleration? How will the Anthropocene unfold over the rest of this century and beyond? These intriguing questions are prompting a redefinition of human history, from focussing on kings, wars and conquests to the changing interactive relationship between humans and our environment. |
21st September 2006
Operationalising Sustainable Development: The Significant Opportunities for Boundary Organisations in the 21st Century
Michael Smith, ANU CRES Departmental Visitor, Research Co-Ordinator for The Natural Edge Project
This talk will show that contrary to the assumptions of many, by 1909 enough of the key ideas and understandings were known and enough new emerging technologies existed to define and purposefully pursue sustainable development. It is timely then to reassess why so little overall progress has been made over the last century? This historical perspective helps to illustrate the point that there are many barriers to achieving genuine ecological sustainable development. There has been much written and discussed on the need for institutional change to address these barriers. However to help bring about and maintain such institutional changes this talk argues that sustainability promoting boundary organizations are needed to help build consensus and political will for change. Such new boundary organizations can create processes and mechanisms to build consensus between business, government and civil society on the many sustainability issues. This is essential to build understanding and political will for effective change. We live in a world where business, government and civil society all have power, hence all must be involved in the process to achieve sustainable development. The achievement of sustainable development will be far more effective if all three move forward together. This requires therefore much improved communication across the silo’d institutions in most societies. Also history shows that sustainable development will only be achieved if it is underpinned by purposeful sustainability orientated policy settings. Therefore new and effective “boundary organizations”, that bring representatives of society together to build consensus on forward looking sustainability roadmaps, are needed to reduce the political risk of policy change. This talk is not simply theoretical. Michael Smith has co-founded a new sustainability promoting boundary organisation, The Natural Edge Project (TNEP) with Karlson ‘Charlie’ Hargroves, Cheryl Paten and Nick Palousis. This talk will outline the ways that The Natural Edge Project is a novel boundary organization seeking to compliment the other boundary organizations in Australia. This talk will outline achievements to date and how they lay a foundation for still more effective processes and projects in the future. The value of this work has been recognised by for instance the fact that The Natural Edge Project was the recipient of The Banksia Foundation’s 2005 Environmental Leadersship: Education and Training award. Further information about The Natural Edge Project and its activities to date is available on the project’s web site (www.naturaledgeproject.net ). 21,000 individuals now use The Natural Edge Project’s web site each month. Michael will also acknowledge and thank in this talk the many ANU academics who have helped and supported this effort to build a new and effective boundary organization.
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28th September 2006
THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE GRASSLANDS IN “NEWEST ENGLAND”: NEW ZEALAND 1850s-1920s.
Professor Tom Brooking, University of Otago and Professor Eric Pawson, University of Canterbury.
This paper analyses how British settlers after 1850 converted about 18 million acres of forest, tussock and swamp into pasture lands using ‘English grasses’, thereby creating what the American progressive journalist Henry Demarest Lloyd described as ‘newest England’ when he visited in 1899. The creation of these ‘carpets’ of rye grass, cocksfoot, white and red clover, larger in extent than in England itself, has long been taken for granted, rather than acknowledged as a remarkable example of imperial environmental transformation. How did British settlers achieve such a rapid engineering of nature, and what drove the reconstruction of an ancient environment that had never before carried ruminants or any large based mammals? The project on which the paper is based this seeks to combine older style agricultural history with a more broadly conceived and interdisciplinary environmental history. The paper will seek to critique simplistic centre periphery explanations of New Zealand’s development as the grassland farming specialist of the British Empire; counter the thesis that gentlemanly capitalists based in London drove its grassland construction when colonial farmers, capitalists and agricultural scientists played a more dynamic role than their British counterparts; discuss methods employed by farmers, seed merchants and the state to trial and develop a narrow suite of grasses and grass mixtures; underscore the importance of ideology, especially the yeoman ideal and its privileging of the family farm; emphasise the significance of New Zealand’s lack of minerals and the consequent failure to develop alternative economic strategies to explain the development of a virtual grass monoculture; and highlight the role played by key individuals in promoting the hegemony of grassland utopia.
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12th October 2006
Robust Energy Transitions: Shockproofing Australia’s Future
Barney Foran, Visiting Fellow, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, ANU
Australia’s national energy policy has many critics who see it as short term, reactive and myopic, particularly in regard to the economy’s carbon liability and its increasing dependence on imported oil. This seminar reports on the feasibility of large scale transitions to an energy economy based on purpose grown wood biomass, partly for bio-electricity, but mainly for liquid transport fuels. By 2050, in excess of 50 million hectares of woodscapes could supply 20% of electricity requirements and 90% of transport fuels. Such a transition could revitalise the fortunes of rural Australia, reduce greenhouse emissions, improve plant biodiversity and landscape resilience, but reduce water runoff if particular planting regimes are allowed. When the biomass focus of the transition is combined with 20% contributions to electricity requirements each from wind, solar thermal and solar photovoltaics, it is possible to reach global goals of a 60% reduction in accumulated greenhouse emissions. GDP growth rates and other macro-indicators for this transition are similar to the base case scenario driven by fossil fuel resources. However win-wins are thermodynamically difficult to achieve with such large structural changes. Under a growing human population, the per capita physical affluence (the energy embodied in personal consumption activities) must stabilise. Another challenge is the containment of ‘technology rebound’ which can restimulate the economy and personal consumption, so that most of the hard-won greenhouse savings are essentially lost. While these physical economy perspectives are analytically robust, they still require further elaboration from economic and social perspectives. The biomass focus of the work is supported by Land and Water Australia and formerly CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems. |
20th October 2006
Economics of low carbon technology innovation: theory, evidence and links to carbon markets
Professor Michael Grubb Chief Economist . The Carbon Trust, UK; Visiting Professor of Climate Change and Energy Policy, Imperial College, London; Senior Research Associate, Faculty of Economics, Cambridge University.
This talk will focus on the challenge of low carbon innovation, spanning from global scenarios to the practical experience of low carbon innovation policy in the UK. Global analysis will draw on results of the Innovation Modeling Comparison Project, that looks at how innovation processes are incorporated in economic models and the resulting impact on costs and strategies for atmospheric stabilisation. From this, the talk will move to the practical aspects of industrial innovation in the industrial sector, the nature of policies designed to foster low carbon innovation, and the experience of the Carbon Trust as the UK's lead institution for developing and commercialising low carbon technologies. Finally, the talk will consider the relationship of innovation and investment to emerging carbon markets, drawing upon the experience to date of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.
Professor Michael Grubb is a leading international researcher on the economic and policy dimensions of climate change and energy policy issues including renewable energy sources. He is currently Senior Research Associate at Cambridge University, Chief Economist at the UK Carbon Trust, a Visiting Professor at Imperial College, London and an Associate Fellow at Chatham House. Michael Grubb is author of seven books, forty journal research articles and numerous other publications. He has been a Lead Author for several reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and is editor-in-chief of the journal Climate Policy.
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26th October 2006
Water Quality Assessment and Modelling: Progress and Directions for Informing Management
Dr Lachlan Newham. Integrated Catchment Assessment and Management, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University
Water quality decline is an increasingly important issue in Australia. Addressing water quality problems requires careful assessment, planning and information on which to base management decisions. In particular, priority sites for remediation (critical source areas) and appropriate remediation measures for cost effective pollutant control need to be identified. This seminar describes how these information requirements are being addressed through the development of models and frameworks for water quality assessment. Two case studies are described. The first case study is of the development of a catchment-scale water quality model for the Eurobodalla region on the NSW south coast. The second case study is of the development of a model to estimate the performance of riparian buffers for trapping and retention of particulate pollutants. The case studies demonstrate a range of methods for water quality assessment and planning. Directions for ongoing research in this area are suggested. |
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