http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/ en martyn.pearce@anu.edu.au Copyright 2012 2012-01-29T22:24:03+10:00 http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/australias_forestry_industry_crisis/ http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/australias_forestry_industry_crisis/#When:03:58:00Z Many plantation managed investment companies have collapsed. A pulp mill proposal struggles to find financiers. A stock exchange listed forestry company requests a share trading halt while it tries to sell forestry assets to repay debt. A major Australian company (with forestry a non-core activity) struggles to divest itself of forestry assets. The global financial crisis is a glib explanation for Australia's forestry crisis. Today's difficulties stem from the early 1990s when it became clear that Australia's plantations, and paper recycling, could do the job of meeting virtually all our sawn timber and paper needs without calling on native forests. Any plantation expansion therefore meant planting for the global market. Shabby global market analyses underpinned 15 years of hardwood chip plantation investment in Australia. In addition, Australian Government policy support for plantation expansion through tax-effective managed investment schemes worked to frustrate market signals constraining investment to global wood market realities. The poor investment decisions are now bearing down on individual investors, regional communities and the public purse, as well as having implications for land use, water availability and the environment. In its proposed emissions trading scheme, the Government will issue credits for Kyoto Protocol compliant tree planting to offset fossil fuel emissions. There are lessons to be learned from Australia's plantation managed investment experience if we wish to avoid repeating mistakes. Public Lecture, Seminar, Botany & Zoology, Economics, Environment, Resource Management, ANU College of Business and Economics, ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment 2010-05-17T03:58:00+10:00 http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/conservation_as_public_health_imperative/ http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/conservation_as_public_health_imperative/#When:06:18:06Z Biodiversity loss, namely a reduction in the variety of life on Earth, continues relatively unabated worldwide. Biodiversity loss represents far more than a loss to experience nature's beauty or to benefit economically from nature. The simplification of the biosphere has profound and well-known consequences for human well-being. Biodiversity serves as a repository for new medicines and as a source of insights into human disease. It can provide a check up on the spread of infectious diseases and it also delivers a host of goods and services such as food, water and air purification, and regulation of climate.In this lecture, Dr Bernstein presented examples, including evidence from recent emerging infectious diseases in Southeast Asia such as SARS and Nipah virus, that biodiversity is a public health matter. He argued that human well-being is tied to the well-being of all species and that we must take care of biodiversity if we are to take care of ourselves. This lecture was presented by the Institute for Population Health, ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment. Dr Aaron Bernstein's speaking tour was made possible by the Thomas Foundation Conservation Oration presented in partnership with The Nature Conservancy. Public Lecture, Biological Sciences, Botany & Zoology, Environment, Medical & Health Science, Science Communication, ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, ANU College of Physical Sciences, Medicine and Life Science 2010-04-21T06:18:06+10:00 http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/darwins_compass/ http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/darwins_compass/#When:23:21:45Z Orthodox neo-Darwinism very much emphasises the random and contingent. Re-run the tape of life, as Steven Jay Gould famously observed, and the outcomes would be utterly different. Terrestrial life maybe, but certainly no humans. They, like tulips and tape-worms, are just another evolutionary fluke. The basis of this is hardly surprising: think of random mutations, massive shifts in the environment, not to mention the odd giant rock dropping out of the sky. Life is on a roller-coaster and is flung from one strange place to another. Conway Morris argued for the exact reverse, that evolution is like any other science, that is it is predictable. The mainstay of this argument revolved around evolutionary convergence, the observation that from different starting points evolution arrives at the same solution. A classic example is the camera-eyes (and please do not mention ‘deep homology'), but less appreciated is that convergence is not common, it is ubiquitous. Evidence continues to grow that evolutionary bifurcations are far from random, but probably lead to inevitable outcomes. This suggests the Tree of Life is very different from the sprawling mass of foliage that is commonly envisaged. Also of great importance is the inherency of molecular systems and the capacity for self organisation. Darwinian evolution explains the mechanism, but not the outcomes. Public Lecture, Biological Sciences, Botany & Zoology, ANU College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Medicine and Life Science 2009-09-24T23:21:45+10:00 http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/fires_forests_and_futures/ http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/fires_forests_and_futures/#When:06:51:12Z The sustainability of the Ash forests of Victoria is contentious for a number of reasons, not least because of the pressures of population and economic growth, and climate change on their diverse uses. Attempts to take account of the principle of sustainability in weighing alternative uses have not been widely accepted and the methods used are themselves the subject of debate. But those attempts have been largely grounded in deterministic models. Recent experience in the Ash forests of Victoria indicates that planning and management needs to be much more attuned to the role of fire and to examine future paths stochastically. Such an examination suggests that the zero-sum game being played by the conservation and development camps is more likely to risk than help future sustainability of these forests and that new strategies are needed. This lecture was the Seventh Jack Westoby Lecture, presented by ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment. Public Lecture, Botany & Zoology, Environment, ANU College of Science 2009-08-31T06:51:12+10:00 http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/monkey/ http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/monkey/#When:04:23:00Z Taking off to mend a broken heart, Vanessa Woods left safe, suburban Canberra and headed for the remote, wild and distinctly unsafe jungles of Costa Rica. She was stung so often by killer bees she developed a lethal allergy, and the monkeys she was to study were evasive, mean and aggressive. The only difference between them and her housemates was that at least she could tell her housemates apart. In this talk, science writer Vanessa Woods will explain how to survive a year in the jungle: a world of love, loss, bitter rivalry and vicious battles – and that’s just the monkeys. Public Lecture, Behavioural & Cognitive Sciences, Biological Sciences, Botany & Zoology, Environment, Society & Culture, ANU College of Science, Arts and Social Sciences 2007-03-14T04:23:00+10:00 http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/reason_for_hope/ http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/reason_for_hope/#When:05:36:00Z Dr Jane Goodall is known worldwide as a passionate environmental advocate. At the heart of her mission is a 46-year research and conservation project studying humanity’s closest relative – the chimpanzee – at Gombe Stream in Tanzania. In this talk, Dr Goodall gives an update on the Gombe Stream project, and discusses how it is helping those people who live adjacent to the park to be more sustainable. She also discusses the work of the Jane Goodall Institute, including the ‘Roots & Shoots’ youth program which runs in 90 countries. Public Lecture, Botany & Zoology, Environment, University, Medicine and Life Science 2006-07-24T05:36:00+10:00