Conservation, Society and Invasive Species

Invasive species pose a major environmental threat, and are frequently the subject of biodiversity conservation programmes. As stakeholder and public concerns surrounding invasive species have become increasingly recognised and better articulated, society has become more closely involved in invasive species management. This has resulted in the need to ensure that positive ecological outcomes, such as protecting native species and habitats, and positive social outcomes, for example public support and improved stakeholder relationships, are both achieved as a result of management interventions. Through identifying social factors affecting the relationship between conservation, society and invasive species, this thesis considers how both of these outcomes may be attained, in the context of invasive species management in Australia. Three dimensions of this relationship were analysed- stakeholder participation, social and political mechanisms and context, and public attitudes. This involved interview questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and postal surveys, respectively. The studies revealed three main social factors affecting the relationship - social associations with species, conflict over wildlife-related values, and conflicts between humans and invasive species. Social associations were related predominantly to species characteristics and their position in the environment, and may affect policy and legislation. Conflicts over wildlife-related values were related to management approaches, animal rights and welfare, and were also revealed to be a legacy of political history. The type of conflict between humans and invasive species was shown to affect management approaches. Stakeholder participation was shown to be essential in achieving both social and ecological outcomes, through conflict resolution, responsiveness to social factors, and justification of management approaches. This thesis provides a novel approach for analysing how social factors may influence both ecological and social outcomes of invasive species management. Although the focus of the thesis is on invasive species, the conclusions are also likely to be relevant for other conservation programmes

Creative ‘Class’: Leading Innovation with Digital Pedagogy in Cultural and Creative Industry (CCI) Programs

Leaders of cultural and creative programs (CCIs) in Ontario community colleges are key to realizing potential in higher education related to digital pedagogy, creativity, industry partnerships, entrepreneurship and innovation. In this Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP), the role of an academic leadership group is considered from Ontario-centric creative industry and innovation policies and college processes. The problem of practice is the gap of harmonized leadership strategy between higher education classroom practices and regional and provincial overarching educational strategy to increase innovation through digital pedagogy. Colleges have collective capacities in innovating with digital pedagogy in creative industry programs and providing graduates with workplace skills, while supporting humanistic ideals of culture and creativity. There is an opportunity for a Creative Program Leaders Committee to move from a community of practice to become influencers of strategy and research. In the OIP I outline a plan to begin the process to define digital pedagogy in creative programs, collect exemplars, and plan to create a strategy document to lead to knowledge transfer among stakeholders. The OIP is contextualized through themes of complexity, ambiguity, and connectivity in a neo-liberal era. Eddy’s (2010) community college change communication framework and Hernes’ (2008, 2014) ideas of process organizational theory inform these themes. By doing so, the informed strategy creation can help harmonize and advance collective goals for both colleges and provincial institutions

Weather and Climate Information for Tourism

The tourism sector is one of the largest and fastest growing global industries and is a significant contributor to national and local economies around the world. The interface between climate and tourism is multifaceted and complex, as climate represents both a vital resource to be exploited and an important limiting factor that poses risks to be managed by the tourism industry and tourists alike. All tourism destinations and operators are climate-sensitive to a degree and climate is a key influence on travel planning and the travel experience. This chapter provides a synopsis of the capacities and needs for climate services in the tourism sector, including current and emerging applications of climate services by diverse tourism end-users, and a discussion of key knowledge gaps, research and capacity-building needs and partnerships that are required to accelerate the application of climate information to manage risks to climate variability and facilitate successful adaptation to climate change

Weather and Climate Information for Tourism

The tourism sector is one of the largest and fastest growing global industries and is a significant contributor to national and local economies around the world. The interface between climate and tourism is multifaceted and complex, as climate represents both a vital resource to be exploited and an important limiting factor that poses risks to be managed by the tourism industry and tourists alike. All tourism destinations and operators are climate-sensitive to a degree and climate is a key influence on travel planning and the travel experience. This chapter provides a synopsis of the capacities and needs for climate services in the tourism sector, including current and emerging applications of climate services by diverse tourism end-users, and a discussion of key knowledge gaps, research and capacity-building needs and partnerships that are required to accelerate the application of climate information to manage risks to climate variability and facilitate successful adaptation to climate change

Weather and Climate Information for Tourism

The tourism sector is one of the largest and fastest growing global industries and is a significant contributor to national and local economies around the world. The interface between climate and tourism is multifaceted and complex, as climate represents both a vital resource to be exploited and an important limiting factor that poses risks to be managed by the tourism industry and tourists alike. All tourism destinations and operators are climate-sensitive to a degree and climate is a key influence on travel planning and the travel experience. This chapter provides a synopsis of the capacities and needs for climate services in the tourism sector, including current and emerging applications of climate services by diverse tourism end-users, and a discussion of key knowledge gaps, research and capacity-building needs and partnerships that are required to accelerate the application of climate information to manage risks to climate variability and facilitate successful adaptation to climate change

Systemic Solutions to Addressing Juvenile Sexual Offending

Research on and treatment of juvenile sexual offenders has surged since the 1980s. While research on this social justice issue has expanded over the past four decades, little has been done in the United States to systemically address the recidivism rates of juvenile sexual offenders. The systematic literature review explores existing literature on this topic, with a focus on thematic categories that emerged through data extraction and analysis. The conceptual paper presents a unique idea for addressing juvenile sexual offending systemically, emphasizing the value of utilizing incrementalism and trauma theory to enact changes to existing systems. The final practice application paper highlights specific solutions to address this issue from a macro perspective, with specific attention paid towards successful interventions utilized globally. Each of these papers provides unique information about juvenile sexual offending and explores this social justice issue from varying perspectives. While each of these papers exists independently from one another, undoubtedly, they are sewn together with a common thread. Specifically, concerns about biased lawmaking and the Developmental Life Course criminology perspective seamlessly weave these papers together, to create a cohesive capstone project that provides a comprehensive overview of how to best address this problem

Reality guides for life before death

The rise of the digital game industry has brought along a plethora of game design tools and frameworks. They are likely to be named specifically as design frameworks for games because their creators have been positioned themselves on the field of game research due to their personal interest in games or due to the fast rising game business. There appears often not to be a reason why these tools and frameworks could not be used in any other kind of interaction design too. Furthermore, even the definition of a game is elusive. In effort to be able to consider what is a game and what is not, the concept of Reality Guides was developed. A Reality Guide guides the user in their surrounding reality. By its definition it is not necessarily a game, and a game by its definition is not necessarily a Reality Guide, but it is possible for something to be both. Reality Guides can come in the form of paper booklets, human guides, digital applications, or something else. The focus in this thesis is in guides that are mixed reality digital applications. Looking at Reality Guides through several game design frameworks, a new theoretical model was constructed: The GEM Game Experience Model is a result of Grounded Theory based work to find a single underlaying model behind all the existing ones. Two non-game initiatives have been worked on with the guidance of Reality Guide thinking and GEM thinking: Life Before Death aims at producing services that will help people with premature end of life circumstances to make the best possible out of their remaining life. Reality Guides for the end-of-life. Also, in the initiative of creating a community around Digital Theology a project course was organized using gamer community originated Discord as a central Reality Guide for the course participated by students from four continents