Taste of Place and Provenance

Bioregionalism is a framework that could serve to bridge the gap between humans and the land that they inhabit. A bioregional food system exemplifies the reduction of large scale agriculture and economy to one that falls within climatologically and geographically determined regions, superseding anthropogenic and political borders. Not only would a bioregional food system encourage mindfulness of the ecosystem that surrounds a community, but create a secure, community-based economy scaled to match the bioregion. The valuation of products and crops of local farmers and artisans would reflect the reliance on bioregionally specific wares, as well as ground members in their sense of place and role in maintaining a healthy, sustainable, and resilient environment. The recognition and respect of indigenous communities is imperative, as local ecological knowledge, or the know-how surrounding foraging and food procurement in specific regions, begins and ends with generations of stewardship and care among local tribes who have inhabited this land from time immemorial. Bioregionalism can only function if there is sufficient understanding of foraging practices, recognition that aseasonality in agriculture must cease, and a shift in valuation of natural resources and ecosystem services. The meal in this analysis is a good example of respecting indigenous food practices without appropriation, supporting local producers in the region, and utilizing local ecological knowledge for the bioregion

Introduction to the Basic Drivers of Climate

Climates on Earth vary from the warm, wet tropics to the cold, dry Arctic and Antarctic. What drives this variation? Every day, we note the weather: temperature, rain, cloud cover, wind and humidity. Climate is the long-term prevailing weather in an area and is largely determined by temperature and precipitation. The climate in a desert is hot and dry. The climate in the tropics is warm and wet. The climate of a particular area is the largest determinant to the life found there. Climate is a key focus in ecology. Variations in climate include daily and seasonal cycles. Climatic variation also includes changes over several years, such as El Niño events, or even decades. Longer-term climate change occurs as a result of changes in intensity and distribution of solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface. Sunlight Intensity Is a Key Component of Climate; Sunlight Intensity Affects Global Winds, Precipitation Patterns, and Ocean Circulation Which Are All Components of Climate; Regional Climate Patterns; Microclimates; El Niño-Southern Oscillatio

Musical politics: Protest and dissent in Aotearoa New Zealand

Popular songs play an important role in mobilising political campaigns by creating platforms for voices of protest and dissent in the discussion of significant issues that questions those in power. This research considers the role songs of protest and political dissent have played over the past 60 years of Aotearoa New Zealand’s postcolonial history. Political messages have been embedded in musical texts reflecting the region’s unique historical and cultural development, especially the positioning of its Pacific peoples (indigenous Māori and immigrants from other Pacific Islands) in issues and processes of political protest. In the 1960s and 1970s, when global human rights movements were gaining traction, in Aotearoa intense feelings over inequities and injustices manifested themselves in song. Māori land rights, sporting relations with the apartheid regime in South Africa and the programme of nuclear testing pursued by the French in the Pacific were all issues of major concern, provoking marches, occupations and boycotts. The social reforms and domestic processes experienced in the separation from Britain (1947) included a ‘coming out’ of difference and dissent and a ‘coming in’ of new cultural influences into the music industry by new waves of migration and the birth of the local recording industry (1960–1986). This case study features 17 representative recordings that cover a range of themes (racism, land rights, nuclear tests, climate change and political discontent) that attracted media attention and public debate. The results presented show how protest songs in Aotearoa continue to play an important role in mobilising political campaigns in the Pacific

Motion as Music: Hypermetrical Schemas in Eighteenth-Century Contredanses

An important part of the recent growth in scholarship on meter focuses on reconstructing 18th-century listening practices. Danuta Mirka (2009) studies contemporary accounts of meter in theory treatises to build a model of 18th-century metric listening, while Stefan Love (2016) takes a corpus studies approach, arguing that surveying repertoire provides a more accurate view of meter than 18th-century theorists. But despite the known debt that much 18th-century art music owes to dance and dance music, Mirka and Love only briefly mention dance. In touching so lightly on dance, these and other authors overlook the more fundamental connection between meter and movement. In this paper I examine late 18th-century French contredanses and their music to propose a model of contemporary metric hearing that unites literal and musical motion. There are three features of the contredanse and dancing in general that support their relevance to 18th-century metric experience. First is the contredanse’s role in society—recent writers on 18th-century music often present the minuet as the premier dance of the century, but though it remained the most aristocratic dance, by the middle of the century it had been surpassed in popularity by the contredanse. Second, contredanses involved multiple dancers moving simultaneously, and music helped them coordinate their movements. As a result, hypermetrical schemas matching hypermeasures with dance moves could develop. Finally, the experience of moving in time with musical meter likely had a positive effect on dancers’ ability to find meter in music in general

Discovering Native Bees

NATURAL SYSTEMS PROVIDE humans with a variety of services essential to our survival. Ecosystem services such as climate regulation, water purification, oxygen production, waste treatment and detoxification, flood prevention, and pollination are provided at no cost, yet their true value is immeasurable. In our economydriven world, these systems are often taken for granted, and as a consequence many are in peril. Understanding their role is a critical first step towards ensuring that they endure. Pollination, the process of moving pollen grains from one flower to another to stimulate fruit and seed production, is among the easiest of these services to understand. Pollination is important for successful reproduction of all flowering plant species, both wild and cultivated. It allows intact ecosystems to continue functioning efficiently, and it provides food and other products for human consumption. Despite its importance, pollinators have been declining in number over the past two decades. Although some plants, including most major cereal crops (corn, rice, wheat, barley, and oats) rely on wind dispersal for pollination, 70 to 90 percent of flowering plants rely on animal pollinators. These plants include fruits and vegetables consumed by humans and other animals. Without pollinators to facilitate pollen transfer, these plants will cease to produce fruit altogether. The best way to ensure that such ecosystem services remain intact and functional is to understand their value in economic terms. If we understand the costs associated with losing the services, we will be more likely to take steps to avoid paying those costs. Determining the economic value of ecosystem services presents a challenge, but the best estimates use traditional economic models to establish a ballpark value. Researchers have estimated the global value of all ecosystem services at US$33 trillion per year. The value of pollination alone is estimated between US$20 and 40 billion for the United States, and up to US$200 billion globally. An economic perspective provides a useful framework for adults. An alternative approach-one that better illustrates the issue for children-is to examine the nutritional impact of a world that lacks animal pollinators. Approximately one-third of the food we eat comes from animal-pollinated plant crops. Pollinators affect not only the fruit and vegetable content of our diets (see the table below), but also availability of meat and dairy products (e.g., cattle are often fed alfalfa and clover, which are pollinated by bees)

Discovering Native Bees

NATURAL SYSTEMS PROVIDE humans with a variety of services essential to our survival. Ecosystem services such as climate regulation, water purification, oxygen production, waste treatment and detoxification, flood prevention, and pollination are provided at no cost, yet their true value is immeasurable. In our economydriven world, these systems are often taken for granted, and as a consequence many are in peril. Understanding their role is a critical first step towards ensuring that they endure. Pollination, the process of moving pollen grains from one flower to another to stimulate fruit and seed production, is among the easiest of these services to understand. Pollination is important for successful reproduction of all flowering plant species, both wild and cultivated. It allows intact ecosystems to continue functioning efficiently, and it provides food and other products for human consumption. Despite its importance, pollinators have been declining in number over the past two decades. Although some plants, including most major cereal crops (corn, rice, wheat, barley, and oats) rely on wind dispersal for pollination, 70 to 90 percent of flowering plants rely on animal pollinators. These plants include fruits and vegetables consumed by humans and other animals. Without pollinators to facilitate pollen transfer, these plants will cease to produce fruit altogether. The best way to ensure that such ecosystem services remain intact and functional is to understand their value in economic terms. If we understand the costs associated with losing the services, we will be more likely to take steps to avoid paying those costs. Determining the economic value of ecosystem services presents a challenge, but the best estimates use traditional economic models to establish a ballpark value. Researchers have estimated the global value of all ecosystem services at US$33 trillion per year. The value of pollination alone is estimated between US$20 and 40 billion for the United States, and up to US$200 billion globally. An economic perspective provides a useful framework for adults. An alternative approach-one that better illustrates the issue for children-is to examine the nutritional impact of a world that lacks animal pollinators. Approximately one-third of the food we eat comes from animal-pollinated plant crops. Pollinators affect not only the fruit and vegetable content of our diets (see the table below), but also availability of meat and dairy products (e.g., cattle are often fed alfalfa and clover, which are pollinated by bees)

Impacts of climate change on public health in Australia

Provides information, opinions and recommendations relevant to assessing the potential impacts of climate change on public health in Australia, as well as guidelines for decision-making in responding to these impacts. It aims to: draw attention to the potential impacts of climate change on health in Australia; discuss the policies and issues related to the impacts of climate change on health; present prioritised recommendations to decision-makers on policies and practices which may assist mitigation of and adaptation to the most serious of the identified impacts; provide guidance which will assist appropriate people and agencies to allocate resources to the highest priority problems; and provide a comprehensive list of references which provide reliable evidence about the potential impacts of climate change on health in Australia. The immediate and longer-term impacts of climate change have the potential to affect Australian health and social environments seriously, and as such, demand and deserve attention by Federal and State Governments and agencies within the Australian public health sector. Policymakers are faced with pressing issues of funding and delivering health services for an ageing society with an ever increasing burden of chronic disease and expectations of access to high-technology, high cost interventions. However, the impacts of future climate change on public health may potentially generate very large healthcare costs if current strategies for healthcare are inadequate. Successful advocacy of new policies and practices by credible and influential groups must use language which can be understood by the people who are to be influenced. This advocacy must be supported by reliable evidence. Climate-related catastrophes (droughts, floods, cyclones, other storms, bush fires) occur frequently in Australia. The demonstrably high variability in the incidence and severity of such phenomena present a challenge to scientists to discover and demonstrate any correlations between the catastrophes and the slow changes of climatic indices due to climate change. Public health organisations must start to develop alternative, more effective, practices to manage the complex issues related to climate change while continuing to implement their traditional primary, secondary and tertiary preventive models. A new approach, based on ecological principles, will be required to navigate through the complex and interrelating health causes. The public health sector must strengthen existing approaches for effective climate change adaptation strategies, including assessing regional health risks to identify vulnerable and resilient populations, collecting enhanced surveillance data and developing monitoring indicators. This approach must be based on: providing sound scientific evidence for predicting the likely outcomes and thus to take preventive or responsive action; and reorienting the public health sector towards greater comprehension and use of ecological understandings and approaches. Recommendations Politicians, health bureaucrats and other interested parties must formulate comprehensive, coherent policies to address the direct and indirect impacts of climate change on public health, including allocation of appropriate financial resources as part of a National Plan for Health in Responding to Climate Change. The National Health and Medical Research Council should be tasked with ensuring coordinated, comprehensive funding to support research into the health impacts of climate change. Research organisations and health institutions must collaborate to develop cost-effective, long-term, longitudinal studies on the impacts of climate change on the physical, biological and social environments that will affect Australian’s public health. Advocates must develop proposals which demonstrate cost savings to government over three to six years, or one or two electoral cycles. Little will be achieved in the current fiscal environment if proposed policies and practices will incur significant new budgetary expenses to governments or their agencies. Managing the impacts of climate change on public health will also involve several other sectors, such as water, planning, building, housing and transport infrastructure. Appropriate institutions should work towards a multi-level, interdisciplinary and integrated response to raise the importance of the impacts of climate change on public health. A comprehensive surveillance system would monitor the inter-relationship of environmental, social and health factors. Observational studies are important to monitor recent and present disease patterns and incidence to inform modelling of future disease patterns. They could also provide baselines for environmental health indicators, which can periodically be monitored and measured in order to inform program evaluation. The public health sector must integrate planned, evidence-based adaptations into existing preventive activities. Useful methodologies might include: a risk assessment approach such as Health Impact Assessment (HIA); an appropriate range of Environmental Health Indicators (EHIs); a “Driving force-Pressure-State-Exposure-Effect-Action (DPSEEA) framework”; and a systematic ecological health framework. The opposite of vulnerability is resilience – our capacity to respond to challenging or new circumstances. The factors which encourage resilience needs to be better understood. The public health sector must communicate concepts of risk, and develop strategies to encourage greater resilience. To understand how we can minimise vulnerability of individuals and communities to climate change we must identify those populations which are most at risk, including those for whom climate change will act as a stress multiplier for existing public health problems. The health sector must communicate climate change as a human health issue rather than just an “environmental problem”. The focus should be on effective, realistic and sustainable solutions rather than problems characterised as bleak and unresolvable

Determining The Cost Effectiveness Of Solutions To Diffuse Pollution: Developing A Model To Assess In-Field Mitigation Options for Phosphorous and Sediment Loss

The European Union Water Framework Directive requires governments to set water quality objectives based on good ecological status. This includes specific requirements to control diffuse pollution. Diffuse phosphorous (P) pollution plays a pivotal role in influencing water quality with losses of P associated with soil particles often linked to soil erosion. The Mitigation Options for Phosphorus and Sediment (MOPS) project, using three case study sites, is investigating the cost effectiveness of specific control measures in terms of mitigating sediment and P loss from combinable crops. The analysis is conducted at the farm level using a simple spreadsheet model. Further development of the model will allow the results to be extrapolated to generic regional farm typologies. Results from the initial farm level analysis suggest that some mitigation options may not be cost effective in reducing diffuse pollution, however, that other options may be very cost effective.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,