Ashcroft, MB, Gollan, JR, Warton, DI & Ramp, D 2012, 'A novel approach to quantify and locate potential microrefugia using topoclimate, climate stability, and isolation from the matrix', GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY, vol. 18, no. 6, pp. 1866-1879.
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Ecologists are increasingly recognizing the conservation significance of microrefugia, but it is inherently difficult to locate these small patches with unusual climates, and hence they are also referred to as cryptic refugia. Here we introduce a new methodology to quantify and locate potential microrefugia using fine-scale topoclimatic grids that capture extreme conditions, stable climates, and distinct differences from the surrounding matrix. We collected hourly temperature data from 150 sites in a large (200 km by 300 km) and diverse region of New South Wales, Australia, for a total of 671 days over 2 years. Sites spanned a range of habitats including coastal dune shrublands, eucalypt forests, exposed woodland ridges, sheltered rainforest gullies, upland swamps, and lowland pastures. Climate grids were interpolated using a regional regression approach based on elevation, distance to coast, canopy cover, latitude, cold-air drainage, and topographical exposure to winds and radiation. We identified extreme temperatures on two separate climatic gradients: the 5th percentile of minimum temperatures and the 95th percentile of maximum temperatures. For each gradient, climatic stability was assessed on three different time scales (intra-seasonal, intra-annual and inter-annual). Differences from the matrix were assessed using a moving window with a 5 km radius. We averaged the Z-scores for these extreme, stable and isolated climates to identify potential locations of microrefugia. We found that our method successfully predicted the location of communities that were considered to occupy refugia, such as rainforests that have progressively contracted in distribution over the last 2.5 million years, and alpine grasslands that have contracted over the last 15 thousand years. However, the method was inherently sensitive to the gradient selected and other aspects of the modelling process. These uncertainties could be dealt with in a conservation planning context by...
Boom, K, Ben-Ami, D, Croft, DB, Cushing, N, Ramp, D & Boronyak, LJ 2012, ''Pest' and resource: A legal history of Australia's kangaroos', Animal Studies Journal, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 17-40.
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This paper presents an investigation into the legal history of Australias kangaroos. It aims to provide a detailed analysis of how the law and policy governing the killing of kangaroos has evolved over time in response to changing public perceptions. This history begins with the pre-European period and traces the impact of European colonisation, early growth of the commercial kangaroo industry, and the increased role of science and regulation upon kangaroos. The paper critiques the historical designation of kangaroos as `pests that need to be `managed and argues that such an approach is inconsistent with current scientific understanding. As this `pest status has fallen in importance there has been a shift in regulatory goals from damage mitigation to resource utilisation, although government planning and policy continue to cite damage mitigation alongside objectives to maintain viable populations and a sustainable and commercially viable industry. While the kangaroo industrys current focus is upon the `sustainable use of wildlife, the history of attitudes towards kangaroos as `pests is so deeply and widely entrenched that it is impossible for the industry to meet welfare standards. The article concludes that the commercial kangaroo industry does not have any clearly defined policy benefit and should be reassessed to take greater account of the impact it has on ecosystems and kangaroo welfare
Plant, R, Walker, J, Rayburg, S, Gothe, J & Leung, T 2012, 'The Wild Life of Pesticides: urban agriculture, institutional responsibility, and the future of biodiversity in Sydney's Hawkesbury-Nepean River', AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHER, vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 75-91.
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Agricultural chemicals are a notoriously intractable source of environmental pollution. Offering enhanced agricultural productivity, they simultaneously risk degrading the ecological basis upon which agriculture depends. This paper considers chemicalisation as a cause of the erosion of aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem resilience, focusing on the Hawkesbury-Nepean River and the small-scale horticulturalists who supply the city's fresh vegetable markets, working under the pressure of urbanisation, retail monopolies, indifferent land-use planning, and often without access to information about pesticide use in the languages they understand. Arguing that standard practices of 'risk management' are unable to adequately control chemical contamination, the paper presents findings from interviews with actors within the 'assemblage' of institutions with responsibility for agriculture, water quality, and environmental protection, in order to assess the effectiveness of pesticide governance in the Greater Sydney Basin. It appears that pesticide pollution is far from being tamed: it is rarely measured nor monitored, neither is it a priority of any particular agency. Arguing that public health, the long-term viability of local farming and the ecological well-being of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River are mutually consistent goals, we conclude that these vital elements of the common-weal are currently subject to a system of 'organised irresponsibility'. The paper concludes by proposing several ways forward. © 2012 Copyright Geographical Society of New South Wales Inc.
Riley, S 2012, 'Australia - Country Report', IUCN Academy of Environmental Law e-journal, vol. 1, pp. 42-50.
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Country Report for Australia on environmental developments in 2011
Roger, E, Bino, G & Ramp, D 2012, 'Linking habitat suitability and road mortalities across geographic ranges', LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY, vol. 27, no. 8, pp. 1167-1181.
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Protected areas are established to conserve biodiversity and facilitate resilience to threatening processes. Yet protected areas are not isolated environmental compounds. Many threats breach their borders, including transportation infrastructure. Despite an abundance of roads in many protected areas, the impact of roads on biota within these protected areas is usually unaccounted for in threat mitigation efforts. As landscapes become further developed and the importance of protected areas increases, knowledge of how roads impact on the persistence of species at large scales and whether protected areas provide relief from this process is vital. We took a two-staged approach to analysing landscape-scale habitat use and road-kill impacts of the common wombat (Vombatus ursinus), a large, widely distributed herbivore, within New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Firstly, we modelled their state-wide distribution from atlas records and evaluated the relationship between habitat suitability and wombat road fatalities at that scale. Secondly, we used local-scale fatality data to derive an annual estimate of wombats killed within an optimal habitat area. We then combined these two approaches to derive a measure of total wombats killed on roads within the protected area network. Our results showed that common wombats have a broad distribution (290,981 km 2), one quarter (24.9 %) of their distribution lies within protected areas, and the percentage of optimal habitat contained within protected areas is 35.6 %, far greater than the COP10 guidelines of 17 %. Problematically, optimal habitat within protected areas was not a barrier to the effects of road-kill, as we estimated that the total annual count of wombat road-kill in optimal habitat within protected areas could be as high as 13.6 % of the total NSW population. These findings suggest that although protected areas are important spatial refuges for biodiversity, greater effort should be made to evaluate how reserve...
Martin, P, Verbeek, M, Riley, S, Bartel, R & Le Gal, E Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation 2012, Innovations in Institutions to Improve Weed Funding, Strategy and Outcomes, pp. 1-110, Australia.
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In spite of much public and private effort, expenditure and creativity, reports show that the economic and environmental cost of weeds in Australia continues to grow. Australians face the sustainability challenges of a large and bio-diverse country, major resource exploitation industries, and a relatively small pool of funds and human resources to provide for protection and restoration. To effectively manage these combined challenges and ensure the sustainability of the Australian environment and equitable outcomes for Australians in general, Australians need to create legal, social, managerial and economic strategies that are far more effective than those used to date. To do so requires institutional as well as technological innovation. There has been increasing recognition over the past couple of decades that approaches to weed management must include better processes, particularly in engaging people in solutions, as well as more effective application of biophysical and social science. Weeds arrive in Australia and, in large part, continue to spread in Australia because of the activities of people.