Standard operational procedure : video-monitoring of sessile benthic communities : a report to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority

Information on changes in the abundance and distribution of organisms in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is essential for managers and scientists who wish to understand the ecological processes occurring on the reef and how these processes may be affected by human activities. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) and the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) have jointly developed a strategy for the monitoring of long-term, regional changes in major biota and nutrients in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The program was established with two broadscale objectives: To detect and quantify major changes through time in the distribution and abundance of corals (and other dominant organisms), fishes, nutrients, and the crown-of-thorns starfish. 2 To provide managers (and other decision-makers) with information that is pertinent to assessing the 'health' of the Great Barrier Reef

Research priorities for the management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and the World Heritage Area 2001

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem, comprising a huge complex of approximately 2900 reefs, 900 islands and other ecosystems (including estuaries, seagrass beds, and soft bottom communities). The GBR supports a high degree of biological diversity due to the variety of ecosystems present and the huge size of the area (>343 500km2). Due to its national and international importance, the Great Barrier Reef is also the world’s largest Marine Park and World Heritage Area

State of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area Workshop : proceedings of a technical workshop held in Townsville, Queensland, Australia, 27-29 November 1995

State of the Environment Reporting is increasingly being seen as an important part of environmental management and is required at the national level as well as within several states. Although there are or have been, a number of long-standing and quite comprehensive monitoring and assessment programs on the Great Barrier Reef, the results of many of these programs have never been summarised in a management context and no overall summary of all of these programs has ever been attempted

Capturing the Atmosphere

A large problem throughout the world right now is water scarcity. The aim of my proposal will be to help the inhabitants of Peru, by introducing alternative ways to collect, harvest and store water and using the collected water to help residential, industrial and agriculture sectors. There are currently efforts to harvest fog with moisture capturing systems implemented all throughout the world currently, but there is a lack of awareness of these technologies. The secondary aim of my proposal is to bring awareness to these passive systems that can inspire architects and can influence morphology of new cities and landscape, by creating architectural features that uplifts the local area while harvesting water and providing back to the community. The design I will be creating will be done using a network of connected fog collectors installed on the side of a mountain top. Creating a facility that displays art and performative fog catcher panels based on Peru’s Old culture of weaving techniques and patterns. The performative panels will be a passive system that captures atmospheric moisture through the sky. The water collected will be publicly available to use for the surrounding inhabitants. Excess water will be used to reintegrate the dry mountain into a luscious, vegetated area

Capturing the Atmosphere through the use of Fog Harvesters

Water scarcity is currently a prominent global challenge. The primary objective of my proposal is to address this issue by implementing alternative methods for the preservation and distribution of water in order to benefit the residents of Peru across residential, industrial, and agricultural domains. Presently, there are worldwide initiatives dedicated to the extraction of moisture from fog through moisture-capturing systems. However, there exists a significant deficit in public awareness regarding these technologies. A secondary goal of my proposal is to raise awareness regarding the deployment of passive systems, which possess the potential to inspire architects and influence the architectural morphology of new urban areas and landscapes. This can be achieved by designing architectural elements that both enhance the local environment and facilitate water harvesting techniques for the community. The design I created involves a series of interconnected network of fog collectors situated on the slopes of a mountain side. This facility will serve as an artistic display, featuring performative fog catcher panels inspired by Peru\u27s traditional weaving techniques and patterns. These performative panels will operate as passive systems, capturing atmospheric moisture from the sky. The collected water will be made available to the public for their use, and any surplus water will be utilized to transform the arid mountain terrain into a lush, vegetated landscape

The Next Step for Players at Academic Institutions: Employees Status and Collective Bargaining

Players at academic institutions have found themselves on a winning streak lately. The flurry of athlete-friendly developments in the world of college athletics dates back to September 30, 2019, when the California Legislature passed a bill prohibiting schools from punishing athletes who accept endorsement money while in college. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) labeled this legislation an existential threat to college athletics when it was introduced months earlier. Not long after, Florida passed its own law allowing college athletes to profit off of their name, image, and likeness (NIL). On June 21, 2021, the Supreme Court weighed in on the college athletics debate with their holding in NCAA v. Alston. The Court unanimously found that the NCAA violated the Sherman Act by limiting athletes’ education-related benefits, but left the rest of the NCAA’s compensation limits in place. Justice Kavanaugh wrote separately to emphasize that the NCAA’s remaining compensation restrictions also raise serious questions under antitrust laws. After the Supreme Court’s decision in Alston, and in the face of mounting pressure from state NIL laws, the NCAA suspended its own rules barring players at academic institutions from profiting off of their names, images, and likenesses. This post was originally published on the Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal website on November 1, 2021. The original post can be accessed via the Archived Link button above

Empirically derived guidance for social scientists to influence environmental policy

Failure to stem trends of ecological disruption and associated loss of ecosystem services worldwide is partly due to the inadequate integration of the human dimension into environmental decision-making. Decision-makers need knowledge of the human dimension of resource systems and of the social consequences of decision-making if environmental management is to be effective and adaptive. Social scientists have a central role to play, but little guidance exists to help them influence decision-making processes. We distil 348 years of cumulative experience shared by 31 environmental experts across three continents into advice for social scientists seeking to increase their influence in the environmental policy arena. Results focus on the importance of process, engagement, empathy and acumen and reveal the importance of understanding and actively participating in policy processes through co-producing knowledge and building trust. The insights gained during this research might empower a science-driven cultural change in science-policy relations for the routine integration of the human dimension in environmental decision making; ultimately for an improved outlook for earth’s ecosystems and the billions of people that depend on them

International Financial Regulatory Standards and Human Rights: Connecting the Dots

This paper’s hypothesis is that the international standard setting bodies (SSBs) could improve the quality of their international standards by incorporating a human rights analysis. It focuses on five SSBs and seven of their international standards and its findings include the following: First, the standards all implicate the right of non-discrimination, and the rights to information, privacy and an effective remedy. Second, they each raises economic, social and cultural rights issues, including the obligation to allocate ‘maximum available resources’ to the progressive realization of economic, social and cultural rights; the human rights responsibilities of private actors exercising delegated regulatory authority, and the need for financial decision-makers to account for all the impacts and risks of their decisions and actions. Third, the SSBs’ failure to utilize such international standards as the UNGPs, the PRI, and the Equator Principles means that they have not comprehensively addressed the risk factors facing the financial sector. Fourth, the benefits that the SSBs gain from utilizing a human rights analysis outweigh their costs. Fifth, there are manageable risks to human rights if the financial sector adopts a human rights approach

Long-term trends in the status of coral-flat benthos: the use of historical photographs.

Long-term trends in the status of coral-flat benthos: the use of historical photographs