Pebbled places preferred by people and pipefish in a World Heritage protected area

Although the ecological impacts of recreational activities in clear tropical streams are occasionally acknowledged and addressed, frequently they remain unmanaged, despite the fact that such streams are highly sought-after destinations for leisure pursuits. Here, we provide a case study on the ecological characteristics of the Indo-Pacific freshwater pipefish Microphis leiaspis Bleeker, 1854, which is a habitat specialist with little available information aside from its reproductive biology and the downstream migration patterns of its larvae. Drawing from our collective experiences, we describe the distribution and habitat of Microphis leiaspis and examine the potential impacts of various small-scale human activities on its livelihood, including those occur- ring within protected areas. In particular, we document incidental observations of human disturbances to adult Microphis leiaspis habitat in clear freshwater streams located within the Australian Wet Tropics (AWT) World Heritage Area. Using these observations as a foundation, we conceptualize human interactions with this species in the AWT streams and more broadly across the tropical Indo-Pacific Ocean. Microphis leiaspis occurs in the lower-mid course of short-steep-coastal-streams, in association with pebble fields, where it feeds on microscop- ic benthic invertebrates. We observed three distinct human behaviours in the pipefish habitat within the AWT, including stone-stacking, the construction of boulder-cobble dams, and stone-skimming. Additionally, we report on other small-scale human activities that may potentially impact this pipefish species in streams across Pacific Island nations and select coastal regions of continents. Our recommendation is to promote a ‘leave no trace’ approach to the public, which can be effectively communicated by key individuals such as indigenous custodi- ans, national park managers, locals, and tourism operators. This approach aims to minimize rock movement by people, thereby aiding in the protection of diadromous pipefish and other aquatic species residing in short-steepcoastal-streams

Control of water hyacinth and other invasive weeds in Lake Victoria: a regional project proposal

This proposal requests the World Bank, through the FAO and the Governments of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania to fund a "Regional Project for the Control of Water Hyacinth, with Particular Reference to manual harvesting and the Introduction of natural enemies for the weed Suppression." The project cost is estimated at US$ 8,350,200 from the donor for equipment and operational expenses, and funds from the three Governments for staff salaries and other overheads for a period of five years. This regional project is a component of a larger regional programme, lake Victoria Environmental programme

Extending cloud-based applications in challenged environments with mobile opportunistic networks

With the tremendous growth of mobile devices, e.g, smartphones, tablets and PDAs in recent years, users are looking for more advanced platforms in order to use their computational applications (e.g., processing and storage) in a faster and more convenient way. In addition, mobile devices are capable of using cloud-based applications and the use of such technology is growing in popularity. However, one major concern is how to efficiently access these cloud-based applications when using a resource-constraint mobile device. Essentially applications require a continuous Internet connection which is difficult to obtain in challenged environments that lack an infrastructure for communication (e.g., in sparse or rural areas) or areas with infrastructure (e.g., urban or high density areas) with restricted/full of interference access networks and even areas with high costs of Internet roaming. In these situations the use of mobile opportunistic networks may be extended to avail cloud-based applications to the user. In this thesis we explore the emergence of extending cloud-based applications with mobile opportunistic networks in challenged environments and observe how local user’s social interactions and collaborations help to improve the overall message delivery performance in the network. With real-world trace-driven simulations, we compare and contrast the different user’s behaviours in message forwarding, the impact of the various network loads (e.g., number of messages) along with the long-sized messages and the impact of different wireless networking technologies, in various opportunistic routing protocols in a challenged environment

Australian Travellers in the South Seas

This book offers a wide-ranging survey of Australian engagement with the Pacific Islands in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Through over 100 hitherto largely unexplored accounts of travel, the author explores how representations of the Pacific Islands in letters, diaries, reminiscences, books, newspapers and magazines contributed to popular ideas of the Pacific Islands in Australia. It offers a range of valuable insights into continuities and changes in Australian regional perspectives, showing that ordinary Australians were more closely connected to the Pacific Islands than has previously been acknowledged. Addressing the theme of travel as a historical, literary and imaginative process, this cultural history probes issues of nation and empire, race and science, commerce and tourism by focusing on significant episodes and encounters in history. This is a foundational text for future studies of Australia’s relations with the Pacific, and histories of travel generally

Australian travel writing on the Pacific Islands c.1880-1941

From the 1880s onwards, the Pacific Islands became increasingly accessible to the average Australian with improvements in transportation and the growth of trade and business, Christian outreach, and colonial administration in the region. Economic prosperity and social mobility in Australia facilitated their movement abroad, and the development of publishing and literacy encouraged the circulation of texts which generated excitement about travel and exotic foreign destinations. The varied experiences and impressions of Australians travelling to, and through, the Pacific Islands filled diaries, letters, books, magazines, memoirs and travelogues, many of which found a receptive Australian audience. This thesis explores this corpus of Australian travel writing on the Pacific Islands from c.1880 to 1941. In doing so, it examines how representations of the Pacific Islands within travel accounts reflected and contributed to Australian knowledge of the region. By contextualising these sources and their authors, this thesis explores the nuances and complexities of the individual Australian travel experience, whilst also situating them within the broader corpus of Australian travel literature. I discuss several themes which are prevalent in Australian travel writing of this period: the experience of seaboard travel and tourism, commerce and profit, romantic and utopian ideals, gender roles, ideas of nation and empire, theories of race and science, and notions of the 'savage' and 'civilised.' It explores how individual Australians negotiated these concepts whilst abroad in the Pacific Islands, and how their encounters and their texts highlight a diverse set of reactions, at times confirming, challenging or rejecting previous assumptions and expectations. This historical study of a previously neglected body of literature deepens our understanding of the historical engagement and exchange between Australians and Pacific Islanders. This was a relationship that reached beyond the political and economic interests of a select few - it permeated popular literature and public debate. Though European stereotypes of the Pacific Islands persisted well into the twentieth century, travel writing was crucial in familiarising and informing Australians about their close neighbours. These accounts also show that this engagement was not one-sided. The Pacific Islands played an important role in shaping the growth of the Australian nation too, and Australian travel writers recorded much about themselves as they did the exotic 'other' when placed in unfamiliar surroundings. This thesis argues that the diversity of travel writing challenges stereotypes of Australian travellers and readers, at the same time as it undermines stereotypes of the 'South Seas.

Australian Travellers in the South Seas

This book offers a wide-ranging survey of Australian engagement with the Pacific Islands in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Through over 100 hitherto largely unexplored accounts of travel, the author explores how representations of the Pacific Islands in letters, diaries, reminiscences, books, newspapers and magazines contributed to popular ideas of the Pacific Islands in Australia. It offers a range of valuable insights into continuities and changes in Australian regional perspectives, showing that ordinary Australians were more closely connected to the Pacific Islands than has previously been acknowledged. Addressing the theme of travel as a historical, literary and imaginative process, this cultural history probes issues of nation and empire, race and science, commerce and tourism by focusing on significant episodes and encounters in history. This is a foundational text for future studies of Australia's relations with the Pacific, and histories of travel generally

Using maritime archaeology and tourism to promote the protection of cultural heritage on land and underwater in Anguilla, British West Indies

At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the 2009 ratification of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage (2001) created a turning point for maritime heritage management globally. However, in the Caribbean region on a local level many small islands are disadvantaged. Management strategies are poorly defined but even more fundamental is the absence of information on the type and nature of the resource to be managed. This thesis looks at the state of heritage management on Anguilla, a 34 mi2 island in the Lesser Antilles, and the process of developing a system for heritage management where no precedent exists. Analysis is based on participant observation and the local response to two field projects, a Shipwreck Survey to record previously undocumented underwater cultural heritage in 2009, and a land-based heritage trail (2010), both of which were completed during a 2 ½ year residency on Island. The first two chapters provide critical background data into the regional and international state of heritage management, the reasons for choosing Anguilla, and the island’s maritime heritage past and present. This history sets the stage for chapter 3, which presents the results of the 2009 Shipwreck Survey. Recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of this initiative, the following two sections are devoted to recognizing the reasons why heritage management has not developed earlier and suggests future solutions. Piloting a theory for heritage management, chapter six describes the Anguilla Heritage Trail, while the following chapters describe a heritage management strategy on Anguilla for the future. This provides a practical example of how the principles of the 2001 UNESCO Convention, particularly its Annex, may be applied and realized in areas with little infrastructure and/or previous experience managing cultural resources

Imaging Environmental Belonging in a Wounded World: Toward a Visual Rhetoric for the Anthropocene

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation.May 2019. Major: Rhetoric and Scientific and Technical Communication. Advisor: Daniel Philippon. 1 computer file (PDF); vii, 171 pages.Recent scholarship has introduced the idea of the Anthropocene, a geologic epoch characterized by human intervention on a planetary scale. The Anthropocene draws our attention to three issues that have historically led societies to made environmentally poor choices: (1) an inability to foresee how human actions affect other life, (2) ideas of nature that create artificial binaries, partitioning the world into “wilderness” and “civilization,” and (3) excessive distance in time, space, or scale, which obscures violence and causality. This project argues that surviving the Anthropocene will not simply be about techno-scientific fixes or public policy. Instead, it will require that we address all three issues by fundamentally shifting how we see ourselves and our world. Drawing on three cases of contemporary discourse—online mapping of the Dakota Access Pipeline conflict, digital photography of the retreating Mýrdalsjökull and Vatnajökull glaciers in Iceland, and interactive mapping along the Great Lakes shoreline—I outline a set of strategies for visualizing environment that promotes more realistic ways of understanding human-nonhuman relationality. Ultimately, I argue that the key to resiliency in the Anthropocene will be our ability to develop new technical and scientific communication rooted in our belonging and emplacement in the world

An objective approach to evaluate environmental management in the offshore oil industry in Timor Sea, East Timor

This research is undertaken as a new venture to explore potential environmental management approaches for the development of the oil industry in East Timor. Particular focus will be given to environmental legislations in order to assess the possible impacts and control of oil industry development in East Timor. The country has newly emerged in the past decade and is still heavily reliant on immediate development of oil resources in order to boost the country’s economic prospects. Environmental laws and regulation are, however, still in an embryonic stage. This research begins with a review of the Timor Sea environment, focusing on the natural resources of the region. This is followed by a review of the potential environmental impacts of the oil industry, as well as an assessment of the importance of Timor Sea habitats and the possible threats posed by the oil industry. Of course, oil industry development mostly takes place offshore therefore the second part of the study involved a pilot study to evaluate stakeholders’ views on the possible impacts of an oil refinery along the South Coast of Timor. Stakeholders were interviewed to gain insight into opinions on how the Timor Sea environment should be managed, and how a new country can raise the living standards of its people in equilibrium with the natural environment of the region. International and national environmental regulatory frameworks were reviewed, including numerous case studies from selected regions. Data collected from stakeholders was analysed, with multivariate and univariate statistical tests employed to assess the significance of differences in responses. Moreover SWOT analyses methods were employed to analyse different environmental frameworks and regulations discussed. The main discoveries of the study include: 1) Mangroves, shallow deep-water coral reefs, seagrass, intertidal shelter sediment and rock are of high value to the Timor Sea and South Coast. In terms of animal groups turtles, dugongs, cetaceans and seabirds are considered to be of high conservation importance, 2) As environmental data or information is limited secondary data was also sourced for this study, 3) Development of the oil industry poses possible threats to the marine environment in the Timor Sea region, although it is localised and transitory in nature, 4) Stakeholders suggested that development of the oil industry should go ahead, but environmental regulations should be in place, 5) Environmental regulations must be adequate and include essential legal components such as clear responsibility, flexible environmental permit system, as well as adequate sanctions for non-compliance and effective monitoring and enforcement processes. The bottom line conclusions of this study is that while economic development should go ahead, measures for environmental protection should also be in place