Environmental Degradation and the Legal Imperatives of Improvement: Forest Policy in Western Australia from European Settlement to 1918

The Australian forests have experienced deforestation since European settlement in 1788. According to Bradshaw, Australia has lost nearly 40% of its forests and the remaining forest is highly fragmented and degraded. In Western Australia (WA), Australia’s only biodiversity hotspot, forests cover approximately 16% or 21.0 million hectares. In the southwest and central parts of the state these forests are significantly cutover and degraded. In some instances, particularly in the wheatbelt, the local cutover has been complete. For example, in the Avon Botanical District (the central part of the wheatbelt) over 93% of the original vegetation and 97% of the woodlands were removed. William Wallace, an officer of the Forest Department, estimated that between 1829 and 1920, 1 million acres of forest was cut. The Forests Department Annual 1921 Report lamented: [S]eventy five years of practically uncontrolled cutting, and entirely uncontrolled burning have reduced this national asset to such a condition that only a negligible quantity of sound young trees is growing to the acre on the portion that has been cutover. Today the only significant forests that remain in Western Australia are the Jarrah, Karri and Wandoo forests. However, these forests have been significantly degraded and contain approximately 30% of their original forest cover

THE APPLICATION OF METACOGNITION, COGNITIVISM, AND CONSTRUCTIVISM IN TEACHING WRITING SKILLS

Writing performance competence is not a process in which teachers transmit knowledge to students, but one in which students construct their writing performance competence on their own initiative. This article proposes a novel approach to the investigation of student writing ability. It applies theories of Cognitivism, Constructivism, metacognition, and self-regulated learning to understand how beginning writers develop the ability to participate in the communicative practices of academic written communication and develop rhetorical consciousness. This paper advocates both teaching with metacognition and teaching for metacognition. To teach with metacognition, an EFL writing instructor should reflect upon his or her own teaching, and possess both metacognitive strategic knowledge and executive management strategies. When instructors teach for metacognition, students can learn about what the strategies are, how to use the strategies, when and why to apply the strategies, and as a result, learn to regulate their cognitive and constructivism activities.  Article visualizations

Seven properties of self-organization in the human brain

The principle of self-organization has acquired a fundamental significance in the newly emerging field of computational philosophy. Self-organizing systems have been described in various domains in science and philosophy including physics, neuroscience, biology and medicine, ecology, and sociology. While system architecture and their general purpose may depend on domain-specific concepts and definitions, there are (at least) seven key properties of self-organization clearly identified in brain systems: 1) modular connectivity, 2) unsupervised learning, 3) adaptive ability, 4) functional resiliency, 5) functional plasticity, 6) from-local-to-global functional organization, and 7) dynamic system growth. These are defined here in the light of insight from neurobiology, cognitive neuroscience and Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART), and physics to show that self-organization achieves stability and functional plasticity while minimizing structural system complexity. A specific example informed by empirical research is discussed to illustrate how modularity, adaptive learning, and dynamic network growth enable stable yet plastic somatosensory representation for human grip force control. Implications for the design of “strong” artificial intelligence in robotics are brought forward

A history of inventory and the assessment of value in Western Australian forests

This thesis provides an account of the assessment and management of forest values, and the factors that have shaped those values in the South West of Western Australia since European settlement. The phases of forest exploitation in this State include discovery, intense exploitation, awakening conservationism, environmentalism, and a developing synthesis between humans and their environment. This phased history has been one of learning by all stakeholders, from ignorance about Australian forest and its timbers, to scientific management and professionalization, social, cultural and political turmoil, commercial excess and eventually the emergence, consideration and elevation of social values in addition to commerciality. This history and the place of forest inventory in reflecting and acknowledging these values in forest management, was investigated through document review, firsthand knowledge of the researcher, information from key informants, and a survey of forest stakeholders to reveal and analyse contemporary societal values regarding these forests. The result is an in-depth description - achieved through an intertwined analysis of forest inventory and community values over the history of European settlement in Western Australia - of the emergence of commercial forest value and subsequently other broader societal values, such as biodiversity conservation, ecosystem management and recreation, as well as the growing conflict between these values. The influence of these values over this period has been to transform the management and policy framework from one firmly located in the physical sciences to one now also drawing on the social sciences, thereby involving the far greater complexity of a political environment with its sometimes conflicting values. The analysis undertaken in this thesis suggests a future requirement for the discipline of forestry, beyond that of physical attribute inventories and tree growth rates and volume tables, to a continued embracing of community involvement, both as a source of data and for guidance in negotiating and resolving conflicting goals. The survey instrument developed in this study to access contemporary societal values has great potential for wider application as a tool for identifying the broad suite of social values relevant to forest management as well as providing essential input to conflict resolution when required

Openness in the face of systemic constraints on science, public participation, and the Western Australian Regional Forest Agreement

The aim of this thesis is to explore the role of science and public participation in environmental policy-making processes in Australia. To this end, I analyse the Western Australian Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) process, a recent Australian Federal Government initiative designed to resolve a longstanding dispute over native forest use and management. Theoretically underpinned by an open systems approach, the thesis employs a case study method for the analysis of the RFA process, using data from three distinct sources; interviews, RFA-related literature, and media content. The analysis of the RFA occurs against the historical background to this policy process and in context of contemporary discussions on science and public participation in natural resource conflicts. Interview data is used for the construction of a meta-narrative of the RFA from multiple stakeholder perspectives as a means of learning about the inclusiveness of, and the treatment of science during, the RFA process. The interview data is analysed using an adaptation of discourse analysis, the findings of which are integrated with information derived from the other data sources. This combined data set is then used to inform a systems critique of the Western Australian RFA process in view of gauging its perceived strengths and weaknesses. The analysis reveals a sense of systemic failure in the management of the Western Australian RFA, pointing towards a process and governing structures which constrained opportunities for stakeholder input and deliberation-based decision-making. A range of cultural, socio-political, and personality-based issues are seen to have given rise to constraints, underlying which is found to be an economic rationality subtly driving a systemic closure of political structures and processes. The resultant degree of closedness is shown to have caused an insensitivity of the political apparatus towards community opposition to, and scientific concerns about, commercial forestry, which is understood to have contributed to the social and political rejection of the process and its outcomes. In this thesis I unearth a paradox arising out of the political need to reduce and simplify the complexity inherent in messy socio-ecological affairs but in doing so adding ii complexity due to political over-simplification. The findings suggest that the political process depends on the trimming of complexity for pragmatic reasons but that, at the same time, the politicality of such closure demands deliberative approaches to negotiate the terms of closing so as to attain sustainable process outcomes. This thesis echoes calls from the literature in support of political and scientific pluralism. An opening of political structures and processes is suggested to enable and facilitate active stakeholder participation and decision-making. Similarly, it is argued that science also needs to become more open towards alternative, yet equally valid, modes of knowing and understanding so as to avert threats to its relevance and trustworthiness in political processes dealing with complex socio-ecological problems. Complex problems demand problem solving with requisite complexity. An openness of politics and science and the processes they engage in invites variety of perspective, which in turn increases capacity to deal effectively with socio-ecological messes. Finally, this thesis understands the dominance of economic rationality as a constraint for environmental policy-making, working against notions of openness and plurality and thus precluding trans-formational change in the structure, mode, and outcomes, of political decision-making. For its implicitness this constraint has so far defied needed societal reflection on its implications for science, society, politics, and nature, which is why this thesis stresses the need for explication and for searching pathways towards more balanced rationalities in policy making processes

Transnational dissent: feeling, thinking, judging and the sociality of Palestinian solidarity activism

This thesis examines the role emotions play in the practice and sociality of Palestinian solidarity activism in Israel and Palestine. It finds that emotion is a subtle and sophisticated, and often ambiguous, form of knowledge and perception which is implicit in forming, appraising and adjusting the relationships participants have with intimates, fellow dissenters and public discourses on identity and the regional conflict. Fieldwork was based in and around Jerusalem and carried out over twelve months in 2011-12. This is a highly diverse transnational field where Palestinians, Israelis and Internationalists come together at specific times and places to practice various forms of dissent, largely but not exclusively against the socio-political conditions of the Palestinians vis-à-vis Israeli State policy. I present three separate propositions on Weirdness, Wrongness and Love, which relate to three different affective dimensions; perception, morality and loyalty. Each proposition also develops upon what Hannah Arendt defined the innate political faculties or activities of the human condition; thinking, action and judging. The perceptive quality of finding something Weird is found to produce doubt in the subjective mind, the purpose for which Arendt believed thinking to be a political act. The moral appraisal that something is Wrong, underwrites concerted political action in the public realm. Finally judging, as the attempt to understand the world from the perspective of another, is facilitated by the discourse of Love in the long-term loving relations activists have with friend and family, who are antagonistic to the aims of solidarity activism. Taken together these feelings are found to flow through and inform one another, constituting a nuanced affective understanding and appraisal of our world, one that is producing and maintaining a politically engaged transnational community of dissent. This community has been fostered to a large degree by the insistence and perseverance of a small number of Palestinians in villages across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, who call upon peoples of all creeds, colours and places to witness and experience the repression of non-violent resistance. If as researchers we are to understand the complexities of human life and practices, I believe we must carefully attend to this sophisticated form of emotional reasoning and begin to think not just about feelings, but also with feelings

Signal Systems Experiencing Ecological Reconnection Through Communicative Biomimesis

Throughout the evolution of mankind, technological advancement has supported rapid urbanization and the development of modern convenience. As societies develop, a detrimental shift has occurred in human cultural evolution. While urbanization has led to comfort and convenience, a change has also occurred in the way people relate to their built environment. Human cultures have long been based upon the natural environment in which they are encompassed, but as populations move away from the natural environment, cultural development hads detached from its natural basis, thus severing the co-evolutionary process between man and nature. Built environments have digressed from occupiable spatial supplements within the natural environment, into structures which hinder any connection between nature and humankind. This has in turn detached much of the human cultural connection to the natural environment. To remedy this detachment, this research focuses on the development of a biomimetic design methodology that employs spatial experience as a means of communication. This design methodology is then applied to three densely urbanized sites through the insertion of a footbridge overpass. Toronto, Singapore, and Perth, are each located in varied climatic regions, providing highly varied biota from which the biomimetic design methodology is based. Each overpass, features five spatial components, each communicating specific environmental status levels taken from the immediate surrounding natural environment. Each overpass is then analyzed in terms of how effectively the five components perform spatial communication. Possible improvements are explored, both in terms of spatial communication, and coherence of the biomimetic language. Projected future applications are considered, and explorations of alternative uses are analyzed.Throughout the evolution of mankind, technological advancement has supported rapid urbanization and the development of modern convenience. As societies develop, a detrimental shift has occurred in human cultural evolution. While urbanization has led to comfort and convenience, a change has also occurred in the way people relate to their built environment. Human cultures have long been based upon the natural environment in which they are encompassed, but as populations move away from the natural environment, cultural development hads detached from its natural basis, thus severing the co-evolutionary process between man and nature. Built environments have digressed from occupiable spatial supplements within the natural environment, into structures which hinder any connection between nature and humankind. This has in turn detached much of the human cultural connection to the natural environment. To remedy this detachment, this research focuses on the development of a biomimetic design methodology that employs spatial experience as a means of communication. This design methodology is then applied to three densely urbanized sites through the insertion of a footbridge overpass. Toronto, Singapore, and Perth, are each located in varied climatic regions, providing highly varied biota from which the biomimetic design methodology is based. Each overpass, features five spatial components, each communicating specific environmental status levels taken from the immediate surrounding natural environment. Each overpass is then analyzed in terms of how effectively the five components perform spatial communication. Possible improvements are explored, both in terms of spatial communication, and coherence of the biomimetic language. Projected future applications are considered, and explorations of alternative uses are analyzed.Throughout the evolution of mankind, technological advancement has supported rapid urbanization and the development of modern convenience. As societies develop, a detrimental shift has occurred in human cultural evolution. While urbanization has led to comfort and convenience, a change has also occurred in the way people relate to their built environment. Human cultures have long been based upon the natural environment in which they are encompassed, but as populations move away from the natural environment, cultural development hads detached from its natural basis, thus severing the co-evolutionary process between man and nature. Built environments have digressed from occupiable spatial supplements within the natural environment, into structures which hinder any connection between nature and humankind. This has in turn detached much of the human cultural connection to the natural environment. To remedy this detachment, this research focuses on the development of a biomimetic design methodology that employs spatial experience as a means of communication. This design methodology is then applied to three densely urbanized sites through the insertion of a footbridge overpass. Toronto, Singapore, and Perth, are each located in varied climatic regions, providing highly varied biota from which the biomimetic design methodology is based. Each overpass, features five spatial components, each communicating specific environmental status levels taken from the immediate surrounding natural environment. Each overpass is then analyzed in terms of how effectively the five components perform spatial communication. Possible improvements are explored, both in terms of spatial communication, and coherence of the biomimetic language. Projected future applications are considered, and explorations of alternative uses are analyzed.Throughout the evolution of mankind, technological advancement has supported rapid urbanization and the development of modern convenience. As societies develop, a detrimental shift has occurred in human cultural evolution. While urbanization has led to comfort and convenience, a change has also occurred in the way people relate to their built environment. Human cultures have long been based upon the natural environment in which they are encompassed, but as populations move away from the natural environment, cultural development hads detached from its natural basis, thus severing the co-evolutionary process between man and nature. Built environments have digressed from occupiable spatial supplements within the natural environment, into structures which hinder any connection between nature and humankind. This has in turn detached much of the human cultural connection to the natural environment. To remedy this detachment, this research focuses on the development of a biomimetic design methodology that employs spatial experience as a means of communication. This design methodology is then applied to three densely urbanized sites through the insertion of a footbridge overpass. Toronto, Singapore, and Perth, are each located in varied climatic regions, providing highly varied biota from which the biomimetic design methodology is based. Each overpass, features five spatial components, each communicating specific environmental status levels taken from the immediate surrounding natural environment. Each overpass is then analyzed in terms of how effectively the five components perform spatial communication. Possible improvements are explored, both in terms of spatial communication, and coherence of the biomimetic language. Projected future applications are considered, and explorations of alternative uses are analyzed.Throughout the evolution of mankind, technological advancement has supported rapid urbanization and the development of modern convenience. As societies develop, a detrimental shift has occurred in human cultural evolution. While urbanization has led to comfort and convenience, a change has also occurred in the way people relate to their built environment. Human cultures have long been based upon the natural environment in which they are encompassed, but as populations move away from the natural environment, cultural development hads detached from its natural basis, thus severing the co-evolutionary process between man and nature. Built environments have digressed from occupiable spatial supplements within the natural environment, into structures which hinder any connection between nature and humankind. This has in turn detached much of the human cultural connection to the natural environment. To remedy this detachment, this research focuses on the development of a biomimetic design methodology that employs spatial experience as a means of communication. This design methodology is then applied to three densely urbanized sites through the insertion of a footbridge overpass. Toronto, Singapore, and Perth, are each located in varied climatic regions, providing highly varied biota from which the biomimetic design methodology is based. Each overpass, features five spatial components, each communicating specific environmental status levels taken from the immediate surrounding natural environment. Each overpass is then analyzed in terms of how effectively the five components perform spatial communication. Possible improvements are explored, both in terms of spatial communication, and coherence of the biomimetic language. Projected future applications are considered, and explorations of alternative uses are analyzed.Throughout the evolution of mankind, technological advancement has supported rapid urbanization and the development of modern convenience. As societies develop, a detrimental shift has occurred in human cultural evolution. While urbanization has led to comfort and convenience, a change has also occurred in the way people relate to their built environment. Human cultures have long been based upon the natural environment in which they are encompassed, but as populations move away from the natural environment, cultural development hads detached from its natural basis, thus severing the co-evolutionary process between man and nature. Built environments have digressed from occupiable spatial supplements within the natural environment, into structures which hinder any connection between nature and humankind. This has in turn detached much of the human cultural connection to the natural environment. To remedy this detachment, this research focuses on the development of a biomimetic design methodology that employs spatial experience as a means of communication. This design methodology is then applied to three densely urbanized sites through the insertion of a footbridge overpass. Toronto, Singapore, and Perth, are each located in varied climatic regions, providing highly varied biota from which the biomimetic design methodology is based. Each overpass, features five spatial components, each communicating specific environmental status levels taken from the immediate surrounding natural environment. Each overpass is then analyzed in terms of how effectively the five components perform spatial communication. Possible improvements are explored, both in terms of spatial communication, and coherence of the biomimetic language. Projected future applications are considered, and explorations of alternative uses are analyzed.Throughout the evolution of mankind, technological advancement has supported rapid urbanization and the development of modern convenience. As societies develop, a detrimental shift has occurred in human cultural evolution. While urbanization has led to comfort and convenience, a change has also occurred in the way people relate to their built environment. Human cultures have long been based upon the natural environment in which they are encompassed, but as populations move away from the natural environment, cultural development hads detached from its natural basis, thus severing the co-evolutionary process between man and nature. Built environments have digressed from occupiable spatial supplements within the natural environment, into structures which hinder any connection between nature and humankind. This has in turn detached much of the human cultural connection to the natural environment. To remedy this detachment, this research focuses on the development of a biomimetic design methodology that employs spatial experience as a means of communication. This design methodology is then applied to three densely urbanized sites through the insertion of a footbridge overpass. Toronto, Singapore, and Perth, are each located in varied climatic regions, providing highly varied biota from which the biomimetic design methodology is based. Each overpass, features five spatial components, each communicating specific environmental status levels taken from the immediate surrounding natural environment. Each overpass is then analyzed in terms of how effectively the five components perform spatial communication. Possible improvements are explored, both in terms of spatial communication, and coherence of the biomimetic language. Projected future applications are considered, and explorations of alternative uses are analyzed.Throughout the evolution of mankind, technological advancement has supported rapid urbanization and the development of modern convenience. As societies develop, a detrimental shift has occurred in human cultural evolution. While urbanization has led to comfort and convenience, a change has also occurred in the way people relate to their built environment. Human cultures have long been based upon the natural environment in which they are encompassed, but as populations move away from the natural environment, cultural development hads detached from its natural basis, thus severing the co-evolutionary process between man and nature. Built environments have digressed from occupiable spatial supplements within the natural environment, into structures which hinder any connection between nature and humankind. This has in turn detached much of the human cultural connection to the natural environment. To remedy this detachment, this research focuses on the development of a biomimetic design methodology that employs spatial experience as a means of communication. This design methodology is then applied to three densely urbanized sites through the insertion of a footbridge overpass. Toronto, Singapore, and Perth, are each located in varied climatic regions, providing highly varied biota from which the biomimetic design methodology is based. Each overpass, features five spatial components, each communicating specific environmental status levels taken from the immediate surrounding natural environment. Each overpass is then analyzed in terms of how effectively the five components perform spatial communication. Possible improvements are explored, both in terms of spatial communication, and coherence of the biomimetic language. Projected future applications are considered, and explorations of alternative uses are analyzed

Corrigin area land resources survey

This land resource survey of the Corrigin area covers some 1.8 million hectares of the central wheatbelt over the shires of Beverley, Brookton, Bruce Rock, Corrigin, Cuballing, Cunderdin, Dumbleyung, Kellerberrin, Kondinin, Kulin, Lake Grace, Merredin, Narembeen, Narrogin, Pingelly, Quairading, Tammin, Wandering and Wickepin. The survey is part of a regional scale soil-landscape mapping program designed to deliver seamless soil information for the agricultural area of south western Australia. The information provided will assist planners, researchers and land managers make decisions affecting sustainable land use and is designed for use at regional and catchment scales. This report and accompanying CD-ROM summarizes primary and interpreted information on the soil-landscapes of the Corrigin area. The report outlines the main degradation issues and supplies background information on climate, native vegetation and geology. An important additional outcome of the survey is a new theory on soil formation that has wide-ranging ramifications for agriculture, soil science, botany and geomorphology. Thirty-six soil-landscape systems, together with their component sub-systems and phases were recognised, mapped and described during the survey. This information, together with unmapped soil types and land qualities, is provided in the CD-ROM. The CD also showcases the main soils, provides geo-referenced soil pit and auger descriptions, maps of soil-landscapes and maps of selected degradation hazards