Synthesis of Australian cross-cultural ecology featuring a decade of annual Indigenous ecological knowledge symposia at the Ecological Society of Australia conferences

Indigenous Australians are Australia’s first ecologists and stewards of land, sea and freshwater Country. Indigenous biocultural knowledge, as coded in story, song, art, dance and other cultural practices, has accumulated and been refined through thousands of generations of Indigenous tribal groups who have distinct cultural responsibilities for their ancestral estates. European colonisation of Australia had and is still having severe impacts on Indigenous cultural practice, knowledge, people and Country. In contemporary ecology and environmental management, re-recognition of the unique values of Indigenous biocultural knowledge and practice is occurring and increasingly being deployed alongside Western approaches in what has been described as cross-cultural, two-way or right-way work. This article describes the development of cross-cultural ecology and environmental approaches in Australia. We then provide an overview of 10 years of conference presentations associated with the annual Indigenous Ecological Knowledge symposiums of the Ecological Society of Australia (ESA). From 2010 to 2020, 173 people participated in the symposia from around Australia and Aotearoa (New Zealand), of which 62% were Indigenous Australians and 3% Maori. Most participants were from Indigenous Ranger groups followed by University staff, with a roughly even split of men and women. A total of 100 presentations were given and a word frequency analysis of the presentation titles revealed the dominant words (themes) were: Indigenous, management, Country, fire, working, knowledge and cultural. The increasing Indigenous participation in the ESA conferences was coincident with increasing Indigenous-led projects across Australia, although we recognise that much more work needs to be done to increase Indigenous participation and control in Australian ecology and environmental management to move from cross-cultural to Indigenous-led approaches

Yugul Mangi Fire and Seasons Calendar

The 'Yugul Mangi Faiya En Sisen Kelenda' (Yugul Mangi Fire and Seasons Calendar) was developed by Indigenous Elders and Yugul Mangi Rangers in collaboration with non-Indigenous scientists, for the cross-cultural interpretation of savanna burning in the South East Arnhem Land (SEAL) Indigenous Protected Area (IPA), Northern Territory, Australia. The language and information, including its visual representation, contained in this publication includes the traditional biocultural knowledge, cultural expression and references to biological resources (plants and animals) of the peoples of the Ngandi, Wubuy (Nunggubuyu), Ritharrŋu/Wagilak, Marra, Ngalakan, Alawa, Rembarrnga, Warndarrang and Roper River Kriol language groups. The information was shared by Elders and rangers for the purposes of knowledge preservation, general education and language maintenance. 
 Yugul Mangi Rangers are using Indigenous and western knowledge to manage fire for multiple purposes, including ecosystem restoration, cultural maintenance and greenhouse gas abatement, in SEAL IPA. The Yugul Mangi Fire and Seasons Calendar presents biocultural indicators- defined as predictable, obvious, seasonal events that may or may not be culturally significant- to guide fire management. In addition, the calendar has potential for application in regional fire management planning, improved understanding of savanna burning and inter-generational transfer of Indigenous Knowledge

Microbial Metropolis: Understanding how legume pasture systems interact with soil microbial communities, and subsequent greenhouse gas emissions

Non-Peer ReviewedCattle producers may graze animals on mixed pastures of non-bloat legumes and grasses. This approach can increase dietary protein uptake, improve animal value, and reduce cattle methane emissions by decreasing pasture bloat. The introduction of legumes to a grass pasture can also affect greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes from the soil by shifting the structure of the microbial communities responsible for nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions and methane consumption, and by altering mineralization rates and soil nutrient content. Two novel forage legume-grass mixes and a grass-alfalfa control were sampled throughout the 2017 and 2018 grazing seasons and analyzed for microbial community structure, nutrient cycling rates, as well as for N2O and methane GHG fluxes. Results suggest microbial community structure, rather than microbial abundance, as one factor regulating GHG emissions. Reduced phosphorous and nitrogen supply rates were key factors limiting microbial abundance, and communities experiencing these environmental stressors were correlated with reduced N2O fluxes. Increasing microbial abundance in response to substrate availability results in depletion of soil phosphorous and nitrogen. This in turn upregulates the carbon and nitrogen cycling activities of communities. Nitrogen and soil moisture content were correlated with increasing nitrous oxide emissions, suggesting that denitrification processes are the major contributor to pasture N2O emissions. In addition, decreasing moisture increased methane consumption, providing a partial sink for cattle-derived methane emissions. Sainfoin treatments had lower cumulative methane consumption when compared to cicer milkvetch and control treatments. Further analysis suggests that different interactions between environmental factors may be involved in shaping microbial communities within each legume treatment, and that local environmental conditions at each sampling point were more important than plant cover treatments in determining daily GHG fluxes. Understanding the microbial processes at play when considering net GHG emissions within a pasture system will contribute to the future sustainability of beef production systems

Naval Postgraduate School PANSAT: Lessons Learned

AIAA Space 2001 - Conference and Exposition, Albuquerque, NM, August 28-30, 2001The Petite Amateur Navy Satellite (PANSAT) was launched aboard the STS-95 Discovery Shuttle on 29 October 1998. PANSAT was inserted into a circular, low-Earth orbit at an altitude of 550 km and 28.45° inclination on 30 October 1998. PANSAT continues to operate and support the educational mission at NPS even after reaching its two-year design life. The research aspect also continues with the analysis of the accumulated telemetry data, in terms of how well the spacecraft operated over the mission design life. However, the store-and-forward mission using direct sequence spread spectrum was never realized

Prologue to the Red River Resistance: Pre-liminal Politics and the Triumph of Riel

This paper examines the early period of the Red River Resistance before Riel and his men erected a barrier at Rivière Sale to prevent the appointed Lieutenant Governor from entering the Colony. During this early phase of the conflict, two Métis leaders, William Dease and Louis Riel, were in competition to assume the leadership of the Métis cause. This power struggle involved two different paradigms of Métis rights as the basis on which to negotiate with the Canadian government. Dease, stressing Métis aboriginal rights, was eventually defeated by Riel who emphasized French and Catholic rights. The triumph of Riel, aided by the Catholic clergy in Red River, set the tone for the larger resistance to come, and significantly impeded Riel's attempt to build a consensus in the Colony.Cette communication porte sur les premières étapes du soulèvement de la Rivière Rouge, avant que Louis Riel et ses hommes n'érigent leur barricade sur la Rivière Sale pour empêcher le Lieutenant-gouverneur d'entrer dans la colonie. Au cours des premiers moments du conflit, deux chefs, William Dease et Louis Riel, se disputèrent la direction de la cause des Métis. Cette lutte de pourvoir opposait deux conceptions des droits que les Métis auraient à invoquer dans leurs négociations avec le gouvernement canadien. Avec la défaite de Dease, l’idée des droits aboriginaux dut céder le pas à celle des droits des Francophones et des Catholiques, comme fondement exclusif du mouvement de résistance à venir. Cet abandon, encouragé par le clergé catholique de la Rivière Rouge, allait compromettre significativement tout effort de construction d'un consensus à l'intérieur de la colonie