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Displaying results 131 to 140 of 148.

The Land is a Map »

Placenames of Indigenous Origin in Australia

Edited by: Luise Hercus, Flavia Hodges, Jane Simpson
Publication date: March 2009
The entire Australian continent was once covered with networks of Indigenous placenames. These names often evoke important information about features of the environment and their place in Indigenous systems of knowledge. On the other hand, placenames assigned by European settlers and officials are largely arbitrary, except for occasional descriptive labels such as ‘river, lake, mountain’. They typically commemorate people, or unrelated places in the Northern hemisphere. In areas where Indigenous societies remain relatively intact, thousands of Indigenous placenames are used, but have no official recognition. Little is known about principles of forming and bestowing Indigenous placenames. Still less is known about any variation in principles of placename bestowal found in different Indigenous groups. While many Indigenous placenames have been taken into the official placename system, they are often given to different features from those to which they originally applied. In the process, they have been cut off from any understanding of their original meanings. Attempts are now being made to ensure that additions of Indigenous placenames to the system of official placenames more accurately reflect the traditions they come from. The eighteen chapters in this book range across all of these issues. The contributors (linguistics, historians and anthropologists) bring a wide range of different experiences, both academic and practical, to their contributions. The book promises to be a standard reference work on Indigenous placenames in Australia for many years to come.

Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform: Volume 15, Number 3, 2008 »

Authored by: William Coleman, Alex Robson
Publication date: September 2008
Agenda is a refereed, ECONLIT-indexed and RePEc-listed journal of the College of Business and Economics, The Australian National University. Launched in 1994, Agenda provides a forum for debate on public policy, mainly (but not exclusively) in Australia and New Zealand. It deals largely with economic issues but gives space to social and legal policy and also to the moral and philosophical foundations and implications of policy. Subscribe to the Agenda Alerting service if you wish to be advised on forthcoming or new issues.
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Green Carbon Part 1 »

The role of natural forests in carbon storage

Authored by: Brendan Mackey, Heather Keith, Sandra L. Berry, David B. Lindenmayer
Publication date: August 2008
The colour of carbon matters. Green carbon is the carbon stored in the plants and soil of natural ecosystems and is a vital part of the global carbon cycle. This report is the first in a series that examines the role of natural forests in the storage of carbon, the impacts of human land use activities, and the implications for climate change policy nationally and internationally. REDD (“reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation”) is now part of the agenda for the “Bali Action Plan” being debated in the lead-up to the Copenhagen climate change conference in 2009. Currently, international rules are blind to the colour of carbon so that the green carbon in natural forests is not recognised, resulting in perverse outcomes including ongoing deforestation and forest degradation, and the conversion of extensive areas of land to industrial plantations. This report examines REDD policy from a green carbon scientific perspective. Subsequent reports will focus on issues concerning the carbon sequestration potential of commercially logged natural forests, methods for monitoring REDD, and the long term implications of forest policy and management for the global carbon cycle and climate change.

Fresh Perspectives on the "War on Terror" »

Edited by: Miriam Gani, Penelope Mathew
Publication date: July 2008
On 20 September 2001, in an address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American people, President George W Bush declared a ‘war on terror’. The concept of the ‘war on terror’ has proven to be both an attractive and a potent rhetorical device. It has been adopted and elaborated upon by political leaders around the world, particularly in the context of military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. But use of the rhetoric has not been confined to the military context. The ‘war on terror’ is a domestic one, also, and the phrase has been used to account for broad criminal legislation, sweeping agency powers and potential human rights abuses throughout much of the world. This collection seeks both to draw on and to engage critically with the metaphor of war in the context of terrorism. It brings together a group of experts from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Germany who write about terrorism from a variety of disciplinary perspectives including international law and international relations, public and constitutional law, criminal law and criminology, legal theory, and psychology and law.

Agriculture and Food Security in China »

What Effect WTO Accession and Regional Trade Arrangements?

Edited by: Chunlai Chen, Ron Duncan
Publication date: June 2008
China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) has had profound consequences for the structure of its economy, and there will many more before the full benefits of an open trading regime will be realised. Agriculture and Food Security in China explains the background to China’s WTO accession and links accession to reforms beginning as far back as 1979. The book highlights China’s policymakers’ decision to move away from protectionism and gain self-sufficiency, and illustrates how China’s step away from direct participation in the agricultural sector to indirect regulatory involvement and liberalisation could encourage further economic growth. Yet not all economic growth is cost-free. Agriculture and Food Security in China explores the short-term impacts of WTO accession as well as the mid and long-term implications of greater market involvement at an economy-wide and regional level. Growing divides between coastal and inland regions—and differences in rural and urban growth—will require a better understanding of the consequences of greater market dependency. Agriculture and Food Security in China adds to the existing knowledge of China’s agricultural growth as well as the impacts and interrelationships between WTO accession and China’s participation in other regional free trade agreements.

Troubled Waters »

Confronting the Water Crisis in Australia’s Cities

Edited by: Patrick Troy
Publication date: June 2008
Australian cities have traditionally relied for their water on a ‘predict-and-provide’ philosophy that gives primacy to big engineering solutions. In more recent years privatised water authorities, seeking to maximise consumption and profits, have reinforced the emphasis on increasing supply. Now the cities must cope with the stresses these policies have imposed on the eco-systems from which they harvest water, into which they discharge wastes, and on which they are located. Residents are having to pay more for their water, while the cities themselves are becoming less sustainable. Must we build more dams and desalination plants, or should we be managing the demand for urban water more prudently? This book explores the demand for urban water and how it has changed in response to shifting social mores over the past century. It explains how demand for centralised provision of water might be reshaped to enable the cities to better cope with expected changes in supply as our climate changes. And it discusses the implications of property rights in water for proposals to privatise water services.

Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform: Volume 15, Number 2, 2008 »

Authored by: William Coleman, Alex Robson
Publication date: June 2008
Agenda is a refereed, ECONLIT-indexed and RePEc-listed journal of the College of Business and Economics, The Australian National University. Launched in 1994, Agenda provides a forum for debate on public policy, mainly (but not exclusively) in Australia and New Zealand. It deals largely with economic issues but gives space to social and legal policy and also to the moral and philosophical foundations and implications of policy. Subscribe to the Agenda Alerting service if you wish to be advised on forthcoming or new issues.
Download for free
Not available for purchase

Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform: Volume 15, Number 1, 2008 »

Authored by: William Coleman, Alex Robson
Publication date: April 2008
Agenda is a refereed, ECONLIT-indexed and RePEc-listed journal of the College of Business and Economics, The Australian National University. Launched in 1994, Agenda provides a forum for debate on public policy, mainly (but not exclusively) in Australia and New Zealand. It deals largely with economic issues but gives space to social and legal policy and also to the moral and philosophical foundations and implications of policy. Subscribe to the Agenda Alerting service if you wish to be advised on forthcoming or new issues.
Download for free
Not available for purchase

Statistical Mechanics of Nonequilibrium Liquids »

Authored by: Denis J. Evans, Gary P. Morriss
Publication date: August 2007
During the 1980s, there were many developments regarding the nonequilibrium statistical mechanics of dense classical atomic fluids. These developments have had a major impact on the computer simulation methods used to model nonequilibrium fluids. The present volume is, in part, an attempt to provide a pedagogical discussion of the statistical mechanical justification of these algorithms. There is a symbiotic relationship between theoretical nonequilibrium statistical mechanics on the one hand and the theory and practice of computer simulation on the other. Sometimes, the initiative for progress has been with the pragmatic requirements of computer simulation and at other times, the initiative has been with the fundamental theory of nonequilibrium processes. This book summarises progress in this field up to 1990.

Federalism and Regionalism in Australia »

New Approaches, New Institutions?

Edited by: A. J. Brown, Jennifer Bellamy
Publication date: August 2007
Australia’s federal system is in a state of flux and its relevance is being challenged. Dramatic shifts are occurring in the ways in which power and responsibility are shared between governments. Pressure for reform is coming not just from above, but from below, as the needs of local and regional communities – both rural and urban – occupy an increasingly important place on the national stage. How will these competing pressures for centralisation and devolution in the structures of federalism be reconciled? In this volume, experts and policy practitioners from diverse backgrounds canvass this uncertain future to conclude that the future of state, regional and local institutions is not only a vital question of federal governance, but must be addressed in a conscious and concerted way if Australian federalism is to evolve in ways that are sufficiently legitimate, effective, efficient and adaptive.