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Displaying results 91 to 99 of 99.

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.

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.
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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.
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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.

The Nature of Northern Australia »

Its natural values, ecological processes and future prospects

Authored by: John Woinarski, Brendan Mackey, Henry Nix, Barry Traill
Publication date: July 2007
Northern Australia stands out as one of the largest natural areas remaining on Earth- alongside such global treasures as the Amazon rainforests, the boreal conifer forests of Alaska and Canada, and the polar wilderness of Antarctica.  Nature remains in abundance in ‘the North.’ Its intact tropical savannas, rainforests, and free flowing rivers provide a basis for much of the economic activity and the quality of life for residents of the area. The Nature of Northern Australia details the latest science on the Northern environment. With increasing debate over the future of Australia’s often forgotten North, this is a timely examination of its environmental significance, the ecological processes that make it function, and the economies that are compatible with maintaining healthy communities and people and healthy country into the future. The authors, Dr. John Woinarski, Professor Brendan Mackey, Professor Henry Nix and Dr. Barry Traill, are leading experts on the environment of Northern Australia, and combined have many decades of experience on Northern ecology and land management.

Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform: Volume 14, Number 2, 2007 »

Edited by: Franco Papandrea, Graeme Wells
Publication date: July 2007
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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Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago »

Revised Edition

Authored by: Peter Bellwood
Publication date: March 2007
Since its publication in 1985, Peter Bellwood’s Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago has been hailed as the sole authoritative work on the subject by the leading expert in the field. Now that work has been fully revised and includes a complete up-to-date summary of the archaeology of the region (and relevant neighboring areas of China and Oceania), as well as a comprehensive discussion of new and important issues (such as the “Eve-Garden of Eden” hypothesis and its relevance to the Indo-Malaysian region) and recent advances in macrofamily linguistic classification. Moving north to south from northern Peninsular Malaysia to Timor and west to east from Sumatra to the Moluccas, Bellwood describes human prehistory from initial hominid settlement more than one million years ago to the eve of historical Hindu-Buddhist and Islamic cultures of the region. The archaeological record provides the central focus, but chapters also incorporate essential information from the paleoenvironmental sciences, biological anthropology, linguistics, and social anthropology. Bellwood approaches questions about past cultural and biological developments in the region from a multidisciplinary perspective. Historical issues given extended treatment include the significance of the Homo erectus populations of Java, the dispersal of the present Austronesian-speaking peoples of the region within the past 4,000 years, and the spread of metallurgy since 500 B.C. Bellwood also discusses relationships between the prehistoric populations of the archipelago and those of neighboring regions such as Australia, New Guinea, and mainland Asia.

Complex Science for a Complex World »

Exploring Human Ecosystems with Agents

Edited by: Pascal Perez, David Batten
Publication date: August 2006
It is well known that human activities are endangering the stability and sustainability of many fragile ecosystems to such an extent that their future is in doubt. At the same time, these ecosystems are inherently challenging to manage successfully because of the complexity and uncertainty associated with their ongoing evolution. Much of this complexity and uncertainty may be attributed to the human dimension. Thus it is imperative that we deepen our understanding of how and why people choose to interact with one another and how this interactive behaviour affects these ecosystems as time passes. Fortunately, a new kind of science is helping us deepen our understanding of how human ecosystems might grow and change over time. Beyond a mere collation of various reflections and applications, the chapters in this book aim to convince the reader that this new kind of science is worthy of our attention. It is a science that fully embraces the complexity of our surrounding world. It is also a science that addresses the frontiers of interactions between human behaviour and environmental responses. Furthermore, it is a science that challenges our limited understanding and treatment of uncertainty. And finally, because it is socially embedded, it is a science that can generate partnerships with local communities in a constructive manner. We hope that you will enjoy the reading of such a diverse ‘ouvrage’ whose purpose is to attract more early career scientists into our field of research and to convince decision-makers that a growing contingent of colleagues working on complexity theory can provide useful tools and methods to better understand complex and adaptive environments. It is time to reassure you (the reader) that the rise of a ‘Complex Science for a Complex World’ doesn’t mean more complicated relationships between science and society.