The nature and role of experiential knowledge for environmental conservation

Understanding the nature and role of experiential knowledge for environmental conservation is a necessary step towards understanding if it should be used and how it might be applied with other types of knowledge in an evidence-based approach. This paper describes the nature of experiential and expert knowledge. It then discusses the role of experiential knowledge as a complement to scientific knowledge and explains the interplay between experiential knowledge with conservation research and practice using a simple conceptual model of how individuals learn. There are five main conclusions: (1) because experiential knowledge will always play a role in decision-making, enhancing ability to learn from experiences (including research) will have a significant influence on the effectiveness of conservation outcomes; (2) while experiential knowledge is qualitatively very different from quantitative information, both are important and complementary; (3) some experiential knowledge can be expressed quantitatively, but experiential knowledge can be difficult to isolate as single facts or propositions and qualitative methods will therefore often be required to elicit experiential knowledge; (4) because each person's expertise is unique, when using experiential knowledge the extent of a person's experience and its relevance to a particular problem need to be specified; and (5) as with any form of knowledge, there are limitations to that derived from personal experience. Synthesis and communication of research is therefore essential to help prevent erroneous thinking and, where possible, experiential knowledge should be used in conjunction with other types of information to guide conservation actions.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Statutory frameworks, institutions and policy processes for climate adaptation : Final Report

Funded under the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, this study addresses two objectives: To assess the extent to which existing statutory frameworks, associated institutions and policy processes support or impede national adaptation planning and practice, and To make a significant contribution to the development and implementation of a strategic national policy framework. The rationale for conducting this study was two-fold. First, that significant climate change is unavoidable and that it is in Australia’s national interest to adapt to those changes. Climate impacts are many and varied, direct and indirect, hard to predict and quantify generally but particularly at the local scale, and impacts will inevitably affect all sectors and jurisdictions. For this reason, it is a complex policy problem. The IPCC, for example, identifies ten key areas of impact for Australia including increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events such as droughts, bushfires and floods, higher peak temperatures for longer periods of time, and sea level rise. Despite the lack of hard economic data with respect to costs and benefits that might underpin formal business cases to determine precise levels of investment needed for adaptation, the case to adapt is compelling considering the projected effects to Australia’s economy, infrastructure, communities, environment and human life. Second, Australia’s capacity to adapt to climate change will rely on robust, efficient, transparent, fair and flexible institutions which build a resilient and enabling environment in which the necessary behavioural change can occur. While humans and our institutions have a remarkable capacity to adapt to all manner of change, this can occur at great cost to society as a whole or certain segments of it without the guiding hand of judicious policy intervention. This report synthesises our key findings against the two project objectives. In doing so, it focuses on (i) where institutional arrangements currently support or impede climate adaptation policy, and (ii) where revisions or new institutions may be required, and the potential for a strategic national policy framework to achieve those reforms

Still settling cities: sustainability, governance and change (Keynote Address

Unsettled cities For many people, Australia was 'settled' soon after European occupation, through the actions of hardy, resourceful and sometime foolhardy 'settlers'. This process and these people then somehow departed the narrative of the evolution of people and continent. They faded first from Sydney, which went from 'settlement' to town and then to city, where settlers do not exist. Settlers hung on longer in the bush, but there too they faded away with sufficient permanence and rhythm of human occupation. Once the survey pegs are removed and houses built, settlement ceases. Occasionally other settlers popped up -'new settlers' as another term for migrant 'new Australians' and later alternative lifestylers retreating the deviant, consumptive cities. But overall the modern era put paid to settling, and settlers, settlement and settling are now past tense in the public mind. Three things are wrong here. First, human settlement of the Australian continent began well before white occupation, at least 50,000 years before, and Indigenous settlement is an unfinished story. Second, the presumption that the process of settlement has stopped. Third, the settlement story has mostly overlooked urban Australia -cities as post-settlement phenomena, devoid of settlers. We are still settling Australia, and we are still settling cities and towns as much as the bush. Subdivisions are settlement, as is tree planting in country or city, densification through housing form, discovering something new about our soils and climate, putting in domestic water tanks, building power stations, fencing, and all the rest. Resurrecting the term 'settlement' repositions current debates in a long story of interaction between people and place, of learning and legacies, of deliberate and accidental change creating the future. The process of human settlement imposes change on land and on people, and is impacted by other factors and drivers of change. We are not close to being settled in our relationship with the Australian continent, or fully capable of comprehending and handling the factors that influence us, which have not varied as much over time as many imagine -climate variability, resource availability and scarcity, our political institutions, demographic change, trade flows and shifts, and so on. It took almost three decades to figure how to remove Eucalyptus stumps to allow cultivation, and we have been experimenting with the Australian environment ever since -still settling as we build, learn, progress, regress, plan and try to create better or at least tolerable human landscapes. From empirical evidence it is apparent that we have yet to figure out what comprises a human dwelling suited to the Australian meteorological and hydrological environment. Or that we know how to deliver such dwellings but are constrained from doing so. In a water-scarce land, we use massive quantities of high value, carefully treated water to shift faeces. South Australia saw one of Australia's most celebrated cases of the span of settlement exceeding advised limits of climate, across Goyder's Line late in the 19 th centur

Implications of abrupt environmental change for urban Australia

The State of Australian Cities (SOAC) national conferences have been held biennially since 2003 to support interdisciplinary policy-related urban research. This paper was presented at SOAC 2 held in Brisbane from 30 November to 2 December 2005. SOAC 2 was hosted by the Urban Research Program at the South Bank campus, Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University. The principal intention of the conference was to lead a dialogue between leading researchers on the state of Australian cities and where they might be headed. SOAC 2 was designed to lead to a better understanding of the research needs of Australian cities and to provide those in the public and private sectors with a better appreciation of the current state and capacities of researchers. SOAC 2 brought together participants from a wide range of fields, including: academics, researchers, policy makers, private and public sector practitioners, leaders in government, social commentators and the media. Conference papers published fromSOAC 2 were subject to a peer review process prior to presentation at the conference, with further editing prior to publication

City governance rapporteur report

The State of Australian Cities (SOAC) national conferences have been held biennially since 2003 to support interdisciplinary policy-related urban research. This paper was presented at SOAC 2 held in Brisbane from 30 November to 2 December 2005. SOAC 2 was hosted by the Urban Research Program at the South Bank campus, Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University. The principal intention of the conference was to lead a dialogue between leading researchers on the state of Australian cities and where they might be headed. SOAC 2 was designed to lead to a better understanding of the research needs of Australian cities and to provide those in the public and private sectors with a better appreciation of the current state and capacities of researchers. SOAC 2 brought together participants from a wide range of fields, including: academics, researchers, policy makers, private and public sector practitioners, leaders in government, social commentators and the media. Conference papers published fromSOAC 2 were subject to a peer review process prior to presentation at the conference, with further editing prior to publication

Can environmental history save the world?

As a 'genre of history' in Australia environmental history is relatively new, emerging in the 1960s and 70s from encounters between history, geography and the natural sciences in the context of growing environmental concern and activism. Interdisciplinary in orientation, the field also exhibited an unusually high level of engagement with current environmental issues and organisations. In this era of national research priorities and debates about the role and purpose of university-based research, it therefore seemed fair to ask: 'can environmental history save the world?' In response, a panel of new and established researchers offer their perspectives on issues of relevance and utility within this diverse and dynamic genre. This article has been peer-reviewed