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Displaying results 31 to 38 of 38.
Country, Native Title and Ecology »
Edited by: Jessica K Weir
Publication date: March 2012
Country, native title and ecology all converge in this volume to describe the dynamic intercultural context of land and water management on Indigenous lands. Indigenous people’s relationships with country are discussed from various speaking positions, including identity and knowledge, the homelands debate, water planning, climate change and market environmentalism. The inter-disciplinary chapters range from an ethnographic description of living waters in the Great Sandy Desert, negotiating the eradication of yellow crazy ants in Arnhem Land, and legal analysis of native title rights in emerging carbon markets. A recurrent theme is the contentions over meaning, knowledge, and authority.
'Because this volume is scholarly, original and very timely it represents a key resource and reference work for land and sea managers; policy makers; scholars of the interface between post-native title responsibilities, NRM objectives and appropriate heritage protocols; and students based in the social sciences, natural sciences and humanities. It is rare for volumes to have this much cross-academy purchase and for this reason alone – it will have ongoing worth and value as a seminal collection.'
– Associate Professor Peter Veth, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, The Australian National University.
Green Carbon Part 2 »
The role of natural forests in carbon storage
Authored by: Sandra L. Berry, Heather Keith, Brendan Mackey, Matthew Brookhouse, Justin Jonson
Publication date: November 2010
This report is the second in a series that examines the role of natural forests and woodlands in the storage of carbon. Understanding the role of natural ecosystems in carbon storage is an important part of solving the climate change problem. This report presents a landscape-wide green carbon account of the ‘Great Western Woodlands’ (GWW), sixteen million hectares of mostly contiguous natural woody vegetation to the east of the wheatbelt in south-western Western Australia. For the first time, we provide an overview of the vegetation structure, climate, geology and historical land use of the GWW, and examine how these interact to affect the carbon dynamics of this region’s landscape ecosystems. An analysis of time-series of satellite imagery is used to develop a fire history of the GWW since the 1970s. These layers of environmental information, along with field survey data and remotely sensed greenness, are used to construct a spatial model to estimate biomass carbon stocks of the woodlands at the present day, and to infer an upper limit to the carbon sequestration potential of the GWW. A range of management options to enable protection of high quality carbon stocks and restoration of degraded stocks are evaluated.
Food and Agriculture in Papua New Guinea »
Edited by: R. Michael Bourke, Tracy Harwood
Publication date: August 2009
Agriculture dominates the rural economy of Papua New Guinea (PNG). More than five million rural dwellers (80% of the population) earn a living from subsistence agriculture and selling crops in domestic and international markets.
Many aspects of agriculture in PNG are described in this data-rich book. Topics include agricultural environments in which crops are grown; production of food crops, cash crops and animals; land use; soils; demography; migration; the macro-economic environment; gender issues; governance of agricultural institutions; and transport. The history of agriculture over the 50 000 years that PNG has been occupied by humans is summarised. Much of the information presented is not readily available within PNG. The book contains results of many new analyses, including a food budget for the entire nation. The text is supported by 165 tables and 215 maps and figures.
Tracking Rural Change »
Community, Policy and Technology in Australia, New Zealand and Europe
Edited by: Francesca Merlan, David Raftery
Publication date: April 2009
A key, intensifying change affecting rural areas in the last few decades has been a decline in the proportion of national populations whose principal livelihood is farming. The corresponding re-distribution of population has typically resulted in a net population loss to rural areas, and diversification of rural activity. The corporatization and technological modification of food production has prompted new policy challenges, and has bound rural and urban populations together in new relationships articulated in moral discourses of custodianship, food safety, and sustainability. Contributors to this volume came together in the attempt to stimulate collective insight into trends of rural change in Australia, New Zealand and Europe. The first two countries have been characterised by avowedly `neoliberal’ rural policy – with considerable departures from it in practice; Europe, on the other hand, by a mix of policy measures which attempt to integrate land management and sustainability, diversification and maintenance of a competitive farming sector within an overarching policy framework more overtly, though only partially, oriented towards sustaining rural society.
Aiming to build on research relating to the character of rural transitions, this volume offers substantive and critical contributions to the understanding of the sources of unpredictability, instability, and continuity, that underpin rural transition. The papers explore changes and continuities in policy, the governance of rural spaces, technological developments relating to rural areas and populations, and social forms of subjectivation and participation in increasingly diverse rural settings.
Green Carbon Part 1 »
The role of natural forests in carbon storage
Authored by: Brendan Mackey, Heather Keith, Sandra L. Berry, David B. Lindenmayer
Publication date: August 2008
The colour of carbon matters. Green carbon is the carbon stored in the plants and soil of natural ecosystems and is a vital part of the global carbon cycle. This report is the first in a series that examines the role of natural forests in the storage of carbon, the impacts of human land use activities, and the implications for climate change policy nationally and internationally. REDD (“reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation”) is now part of the agenda for the “Bali Action Plan” being debated in the lead-up to the Copenhagen climate change conference in 2009. Currently, international rules are blind to the colour of carbon so that the green carbon in natural forests is not recognised, resulting in perverse outcomes including ongoing deforestation and forest degradation, and the conversion of extensive areas of land to industrial plantations. This report examines REDD policy from a green carbon scientific perspective. Subsequent reports will focus on issues concerning the carbon sequestration potential of commercially logged natural forests, methods for monitoring REDD, and the long term implications of forest policy and management for the global carbon cycle and climate change.
Agriculture and Food Security in China »
What Effect WTO Accession and Regional Trade Arrangements?
Edited by: Chunlai Chen, Ron Duncan
Publication date: June 2008
China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) has had profound consequences for the structure of its economy, and there will many more before the full benefits of an open trading regime will be realised.
Agriculture and Food Security in China explains the background to China’s WTO accession and links accession to reforms beginning as far back as 1979. The book highlights China’s policymakers’ decision to move away from protectionism and gain self-sufficiency, and illustrates how China’s step away from direct participation in the agricultural sector to indirect regulatory involvement and liberalisation could encourage further economic growth.
Yet not all economic growth is cost-free. Agriculture and Food Security in China explores the short-term impacts of WTO accession as well as the mid and long-term implications of greater market involvement at an economy-wide and regional level. Growing divides between coastal and inland regions—and differences in rural and urban growth—will require a better understanding of the consequences of greater market dependency.
Agriculture and Food Security in China adds to the existing knowledge of China’s agricultural growth as well as the impacts and interrelationships between WTO accession and China’s participation in other regional free trade agreements.
Complex Science for a Complex World »
Exploring Human Ecosystems with Agents
Edited by: Pascal Perez, David Batten
Publication date: August 2006
It is well known that human activities are endangering the stability and sustainability of many fragile ecosystems to such an extent that their future is in doubt. At the same time, these ecosystems are inherently challenging to manage successfully because of the complexity and uncertainty associated with their ongoing evolution. Much of this complexity and uncertainty may be attributed to the human dimension. Thus it is imperative that we deepen our understanding of how and why people choose to interact with one another and how this interactive behaviour affects these ecosystems as time passes.
Fortunately, a new kind of science is helping us deepen our understanding of how human ecosystems might grow and change over time. Beyond a mere collation of various reflections and applications, the chapters in this book aim to convince the reader that this new kind of science is worthy of our attention. It is a science that fully embraces the complexity of our surrounding world. It is also a science that addresses the frontiers of interactions between human behaviour and environmental responses. Furthermore, it is a science that challenges our limited understanding and treatment of uncertainty. And finally, because it is socially embedded, it is a science that can generate partnerships with local communities in a constructive manner.
We hope that you will enjoy the reading of such a diverse ‘ouvrage’ whose purpose is to attract more early career scientists into our field of research and to convince decision-makers that a growing contingent of colleagues working on complexity theory can provide useful tools and methods to better understand complex and adaptive environments. It is time to reassure you (the reader) that the rise of a ‘Complex Science for a Complex World’ doesn’t mean more complicated relationships between science and society.
State, Communities and Forests In Contemporary Borneo »
Edited by: Fadzilah Majid Cooke
Publication date: July 2006
The name ‘Borneo’ evokes visions of constantly changing landscapes, but with important island-wide continuities. One of the continuities has been the forests, which have for generations been created and modified by the indigenous population, but over the past three decades have been partially replaced by tree crops, grass or scrub. This book, the first in the series of Asia-Pacific Environmental Monographs, looks at the political complexities of forest management across the whole island of Borneo, tackling issues of tenure, land use change and resource competition, ‘tradition’ versus ‘modernity’, disputes within and between communities, between communities and private firms, or between communities and governments. While it focuses on the changes taking place in local political economies and conservation practices, it also makes visible the larger changes taking place in both Indonesia and Malaysia. The common theme of the volume is the need to situate local complexities in the larger institutional context, and the possible gains to be made from such an approach in the search for alternative models of conservation and development.